This article reads like a press release or a news article and may be largely based on routine coverage .(October 2021) |
Type | Public |
---|---|
Nasdaq: LFLY | |
Industry | Medical & Adult Use Cannabis |
Founded | Irvine, California, U.S. (June 13, 2010 ) |
Founders | Cy Scott Scott Vickers Brian Wansolich |
Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
Key people | |
Website | www |
Leafly is a website focused on cannabis use and education. [3] The company says it has more than 120 million annual visitors and over 10 million monthly active users. [4] Leafly provides a wide range of information on cannabis, including 1.5 million consumer product reviews, more than 9,000 cannabis articles and resources, and over 5,000 verified strains in its database. [4] Leafly additionally provides 4,500+ retailers and 8,000+ cannabis brands with e-commerce tools such as digital storefronts, embedded menus, point-of-sale integrations, targeted advertising, and more. [4] The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and from 2012 to 2019 was owned by Privateer Holdings, a private equity firm focused on the emerging legal cannabis industry. [5] [6] [7] Leafly is now a publicly traded company with 160 employees. [4]
Leafly was founded in June 2010 by Scott Vickers, Brian Wansolich, and Cy Scott. [8] The three Orange County engineers recognized the need for a legitimate strain resource and began to build Leafly as a side project to their jobs as web developers. [8] [9] [10] Privateer Holdings acquired the company in 2011, at which time Brendan Kennedy became the company's CEO. [11] [12] [13] Meanwhile, the original founders left to launch a new company named Headset. [14] By July 2011 the website had received about 180,000 unique visitors and was growing at 30 percent per month. [10] In April 2012, Leafly reported about 2.3 million monthly visits and approximately 50,000 mobile app downloads per month. [9] [15] In June 2016, the company announced that it received more than 6 million monthly visitors and 31 million page views across its website and mobile applications. [16] On August 2, 2014, Leafly became the first cannabis company to place an advertisement in The New York Times. [17]
On November 6, 2017, Privateer Holdings announced the appointment of Chris Jeffery as CEO; he was formerly co-founder of food delivery service OrderUp, [18] He was replaced in 2018, . [19]
On March 4, 2019, the firm appointed former vice president of Amazon Prime Video International Tim Leslie as its CEO. [20] [21] He was replaced on August 18, 2020 by Yoko Miyashita, formerly the firm's General Counsel. [22]
Leafly generates revenue by selling online display advertising and priority dispensary listing packages to companies in the cannabis industry. [9] [23] Display advertising campaigns are sold on a Cost Per Impression model. [8] [9] More than 4.5 million orders are placed with businesses on Leafly each year, generating $460 million in gross merchandise value (GMV) annually for Leafly partnered retailers. [4]
Leafly has three primary functions:
Patients and consumers use Leafly to search for cannabis strains according to medical use, such as anxiety or nausea, and desired effects, like euphoria or creativity. [9] [24] Relevant strains are then presented in a format similar to the periodic table. The table is color coded to identify whether the strain is sativa, indica, or a hybrid of both. [10] [25]
Patients can use their zip codes or city and state names to search for dispensaries, which are then displayed on a map of the area. The dispensary profiles include menus, reviews, photos, and store locations. [25] [26] [13]
Leafly users can write reviews of strains and products they have tried or dispensaries they have visited. For dispensaries and products, reviews consist of a brief comment section and a star rating system that is based on medication, service, and atmosphere. Strain reviews include desirable effects, attributes, and summary information. [26] [15] [12]
Leafly has mobile applications for iOS and Android devices. [25] [27] [28] [8] [10] In 2021, the company launched a new iOS app that enables iPhone and iPad users to place pickup orders for cannabis in legal state markets. [29]
Jodie Emery is a Canadian cannabis rights activist and politician. She is the spouse of fellow activist Marc Emery. Until the business was shut down by police, the couple were co-owners of Cannabis Culture, a business that franchised pot dispensaries, later deemed to be illegal. They had obtained the cannabis from illegal sources, according to Crown prosecutors. They are the former operators and owners of Cannabis Culture magazine and Pot TV.
Dana Albert Larsen is a Canadian author, businessman, philanthropist and activist for cannabis and drug policy reform. Larsen currently operates businesses and non-profit societies in Vancouver including The Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary, The Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary, The Coca Leaf Cafe, Pothead Books, and the Get Your Drugs Tested centre.
Cannabis in Oregon is legal for both medical and recreational use. In recent decades, the U.S. state of Oregon has had a number of legislative, legal, and cultural events surrounding use of cannabis. Oregon was the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis, and among the first to authorize its use for medical purposes. An attempt to recriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis was turned down by Oregon voters in 1997.
Weedmaps is a tech company serving the cannabis industry, founded in 2008 by Justin Hartfield and Keith Hoerling.
The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) is an American non-profit organization based in the District of Columbia, with an additional office in Denver, Colorado. NCIA is the largest cannabis trade association in the U.S. and the only organization representing state-sanctioned cannabis-related businesses at the federal level. Its mission is "to promote the growth of a responsible and legitimate cannabis industry and work for a favorable social, economic and legal environment for that industry in the United States." The organization was founded in late 2010 and has been described as the "first national trade group for the cannabis industry" in the United States.
Privateer Holdings is an American private equity company that invests in the legal cannabis industry. Privateer Holdings is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and employs more than 350 people in seven countries. The company is building a diversified portfolio of cannabis brands. As of November 2016, the company has raised $122 million. Privateer Holdings secured the first institutional investor to enter the cannabis industry, Founders Fund. In 2019 Privateer Holdings was merged with Tilray.
Justin Hartfield is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist from Orange County, California. He is a co-founder and general partner at the Ghost Group venture capital firm and was the CEO at WeedMaps before stepping down in 2016 to pursue other ventures.
MedMen Enterprises, or MedMen, is a publicly-traded, United States-based cannabis company with operations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts.
Canopy Growth Corporation, formerly Tweed Marijuana Inc., is a cannabis company based in Smiths Falls, Ontario.
Wikileaf Technologies is a Seattle business providing data services to the cannabis industry and information to consumers. The company provides price indexes and cannabis strain reviews and information.
Where's Weed is an American cannabis technology company known for connecting medical and recreational cannabis users with trusted local marijuana businesses in their communities.
Cannabis dispensaries in the United States or marijuana dispensaries are a local government regulated physical location, typically inside a retail storefront or office building, in which a person can purchase cannabis and cannabis related items for medical or recreational use. First modeled in Amsterdam in the late 1970s where they were innocently called coffee shops, it would take the Americans more than a generation to successfully duplicate the idea of a retail cannabis storefront. Unlike in the Dutch coffee shops, today dispensary customers are prevented from consuming cannabis on the site of a regulated dispensary in all known markets.
MassRoots is a social network for the cannabis community. As of June 2016, it had an estimated 900,000 users. MassRoots for Business, the company’s advertising portal, has an estimated 1,000 clients as of June 2015. In 2014, MassRoots was one of the first cannabis-related companies to go public through a Registration Statement on Form S-1 and trades under the ticker “MSRT” and in August 2015, MassRoots submitted an application to up-list its stock to the Nasdaq.
Cannabis in Nevada became legal for recreational use on January 1, 2017, following the passage of Question 2 on the 2016 ballot. The first licensed sales of recreational cannabis began on July 1, 2017.
Eaze is an American company based in San Francisco, California that launched a medical cannabis delivery app of the same name in 2014.
To frame the lists below, here is an overview of women in the industry since as early as 2012 in the U.S. Cannabis has a long legal history in the U.S. from criminalization to liberalization given the emerging markets of legalizing medicinal and recreational use of cannabis. Women and issues relating to gender bias or sexism vs. gender equality and inclusion have played a significant role in various sectors of emerging markets, particularly in Colorado, California, and Oregon.
KushCo Holdings is an American company that sells packaging, containers, and other ancillary products for the cannabis industry. It is based in Garden Grove, California and is publicly traded on the New York OTCQB marketplace under the stock ticker symbol, KSHB.
Planet 13 Holdings, Inc. is a cannabis company based in Nevada, United States. On Nov 1, 2018, the company opened its cannabis dispensary in Las Vegas which became the largest cannabis dispensary in the world at 112,000 square feet.
Cresco Labs, Inc. is a publicly traded, vertically integrated cannabis and medical marijuana company based in Chicago, Illinois, with current retail operations in nine states where marijuana has been legalized for medical use. The company's stock trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker symbol CL, and in over-the-counter markets in the United States with the ticker symbol CRLBF.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the cannabis industry. Investor's Business Daily said the industry was affected as "customers stock up on prescriptions and recreational customers load up on something to make the lockdown a little more mellow or a little less boring".