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💬 With conference season mostly behind us, I’ll be doing more podcast recordings and write-ups in the next month. So expect 1-2 of these a week for the next few weeks.

Background. John Yang grew up in Reno, NV around small and medium sized businesses in an entrepreneurial environment with his father owning a computer shop. He saw firshand how digitizing manual processes and bringing processes online improved efficiency. After seven years as a Consultant (Accenture, Slalom) and building out a technology solutions firm for restaurants and medical marijuana dispensaries (IM360), he and his Co-Founder, Shareef El-Sissi, purpose-built Treez for problems Shareef was facing at Garden of Eden (Hayward, CA).

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Company Overview. Treez is currently live in 15 States (California, Colorado, Michigan, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, New Mexico, Maine, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Illinois) with rapid expansion into new states coming after their $51M Series C in April 2022. They are targeting to be live in the Top 10 Market (States) by Q2 2023 and in 20 States by the end of 2023. Treez currently works with 5M+ unique customers, 600+ brands, processes $4B+ in transactions annually (15% market share of U.S. dispensaries).

Treez is currently live in 15 States (CA, CO, MI, AZ, MO, OK, MA, NJ, NV, OR, NM, ME, SD, MS, and IL)

Product Updates. Treez unveiled updates to the Treez platform (enhanced Retail Analytics and Integration Hub products) during MJBizCon.

Integration Hub. Built for multi-location and multi-state operators to streamline integrations between their business systems. Treez Integration Hub unlocks access to integrations with best-in-breed technology providers from cannabis and beyond, including enterprise-grade CRMs, business intelligence, communications software, ERPs and supply chain software solutions. Retailers can now expect to leverage systems like Odoo, Salesforce, SAP, NetSuite, as well as, bring their own tools all through one integrated platform.
Retail Analytics. Making data more usable and action-oriented natively within the point-of-sale. The tool reduces inventory issues and potential lost sales by empowering real-time decision making with real-time sales and inventory numbers. Treez has optimized purchasing and inventory management workflows as well with centralized visibility to products and inventory across the client’s retail footprint, scalable from one store to hundreds.

Competition. John mentions Dutchie POS as their most formidable competitor, while others are more so staying afloat and are more vulnerable to being displaced. The company has a different philosophy vs. Dutchie, choosing to focus on POS and certain states vs. being everything to all customers and live in all states. Treez integrates with solutions for eCommerce, online ordering, delivery logistics, marketing, customer loyalty, accounting, analytics, digital signage, and more.

Funding. Treez has raised $79M total to date. The Company’s Series C was $51M (Synchrony Ventures, Long Ridge Equity Partners, Reform Ventures, and Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors) in April 2022, announcing a post-money valuation of $260M. The company’s Series B was $13M (Intrinsic Capital Partners, WGD Capital, Canna Angels). The company’s Series A was $15M (Intrinsic Capital Partners, Achari Ventures, Bravos Capital, Salveo Capital, AFI Capital Partners, New York ARC Angels Arcadian Funds).

M&A. Treez acquired Swifter (Stripe for Cannabis), a payment solutions platform tailored to meet the unique needs of the cannabis industry. The acquisition of Swifter further solidifies their position to offer a comprehensive suite of financial services and digital payments solutions to cannabis dispensaries—bringing forward scalable fintech and payment solutions to optimize the customer experience and meet consumers where they are today. Treez will be able to provide embedded partner-powered fintech solutions (transparency, stability and better processing rates) for retailers. Additionally, Treez will be able to leverage and further build upon the Swifter technology to allow more traditional banks and fintech providers to more easily enter the space as legislation efforts like SAFE banking get closer to passing. Due to federal-state level differences in legality, cannabis merchants can’t access fintech services built for general businesses, including digital payments. With Swifter’s APIs, any dispensary, MSO, or cannabis software provider can start accepting digital payments, today. The company is opportunistically looking at acqusitions but plans to stay focused on organic growth.

👋 The Highly Objective Podcast is hosted by Dai Truong, who leads Cannabis Investment Banking at Arlington Capital Advisors.. Third-party information presented here and links to third-party content are for informational purposes only and are not intended as a recommendation, offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument, security or investment. The information provided is not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and is subject to change without notice. Linking to third-party sites in no way implies an endorsement or affiliation of any kind between Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC, or its affiliates and any third party. The information in this blog constitutes my own opinions (and any opinions posted by guest bloggers from time to time) and it should not be regarded as a description of services provided by Arlington Capital Advisors, LLC or any affiliate.

Highly Objective

🎙️ Treez, CEO, John Yang