Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | October 14, 2019 | Worcester Business Journal 11 W I N F O R M A T I O N T E C H N O L O G Y F O C U S 352 Boston Turnpike, Shrewsbury, MA 01545 (508)-752-5387 • www.masielloconst.com General Contractors Serving Business and Industry Since 1959 Masiello Construction Co., Inc. also specializes in Backup Data and Server Rooms, UPS Systems and Emergency Backup Power Generation, serving Commercial, Industrial and Government Entities. Let us provide the Infrastructure for your complex Information Technology Needs. Celebrating 60 Years! markets, Juri said. Noni Goldman, a Worcester-based instructional designer with Atlan- ta-based cannabis soware firm Flour- ish, said this will continue to be the case until more businesses outside of multi-state operators open in Massa- chusetts. Flourish's entire sales staff is based on the West Coast where hundreds more locally owned operators are look- ing for a new website vendor, Goldman said. Multi-state operators typically use the same soware systems across their holdings. "If you're a multi-state operator, you're going to choose the same so- ware system you're using in another state," Goldman said. "We're playing catch up to a lot of other big soware systems." As such, Flourish – which offers a wide range of technology services including production management, point-of-sale services and tracking compliance – does not yet have any Massachusetts clients. Some of the largest cannabis tech companies are either based on the West Coast or entered the market doing business with companies in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California. at includes CanPay, a debit payment app based in Colorado with nearly 300 customers across 17 states. Delivery services like Eaze and Green- rush are based in California and have been operating in multiple states for several years. Colorado and California were much quicker than Massachusetts in allowing existing medical dispensaries to enter the recreational market, so the indus- try grew at a steady pace and opening the door for ancillary businesses to join the market. In Massachusetts, the Cannabis Control Commission has authorized 64 out of 540 marijuana business applicants to either begin retail sales or production. In the state, 26 retail stores are open, and another 192 are in the pipeline. Limited ability to grow e slow rollout of legal marijuana retailers is not only keeping prices high and the black market alive, but delaying cannabis tech entrepreneurs like Juri from signing up a significant amount of new clients. So far, he has three clients for the website and technology services, but the transportation aspect of Stalk & Beans could soon grow to six business clients. at service offers transportation from production and cultivation centers to dispensaries, but soon a warehouse facility Juri is building in Fitchburg will store products for com- panies and deliver them on a schedule from the facility. Juri, though, remains most hyped about delivery. His delivery soware is integrated with web orders, in-store kiosk orders and mobile app orders to allow an order to be tracked in real time. Stalk & Beans has been doing limited deliv- eries for medical customers, but the company have to get creative in order to tap into the recreational delivery market. e Cannabis Control Commission approved regulations in September calling for delivery license applications for the first two years to be available only to applicants in the social equity program, or those in the marijuana industry that had previously been con- victed of a drug offense or living in an area not exceeding 400% of the federal poverty level. Juri, a Babson College graduate, does not fall under that description. Now, he has trucks, drivers and the technology to enter the recreational delivery market, but not the regulatory ability. Juri and his team are looking for social equity applications to partner with or sell the soware to those look- ing to take advantage of the Cannabis Control Commission's new rules. "We have everything someone would need to do compliant recre- ational deliveries," he said. Notes: Through Sept. 26 Source: Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission Recreational marijuana sales Since retail sales of adult-use cannabis began in November, more than $316 million worth of marijuana has been sold in Massachusetts. $10M $20M $30M $40M $50M N D J F M A M J J A S 0 $3.6M $49.3M The Leicester marijuana retailer and grower Cultivate was the first to offer recreational marijuana sales in Massachusetts. State regulators have opened up applications for companies to offer delivery services.

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