Eaze
What they do: Eaze has built a platform for medical marijuana that delivers MMJ products directly to consumers.
Problem they solve: Medical Marijuana (MMJ) exists in a legal gray area. While MMJ is legal in 29 states and Washington, D.C. and while a few other states, including Colorado, Washington, and California, have gone a step further and legalized recreational marijuana, MMJ is still technically illegal at the federal level.
This creates all sorts of headaches for both MMJ businesses and patients.
#Big50-2017 #startup Eaze's mobile app delivers high-quality MMJ directly to patients within 30 minutes. Click To TweetMany patients must rely on the illicit market or must travel to a distant dispensary – which can be a real burden for patients with the most serious ailments – to receive the cannabis products they need to alleviate their health problems. Additionally, marijuana products that are obtained via the illicit market are not tested for pesticides, potency, or anything else for that matter.
How they solve it: Eaze provides medical cannabis patients with a safe and fast delivery platform that works directly with approved dispensaries, eliminating the need to rely on the illicit market or to travel to a dispensary.
Typically, Eaze users receive their deliveries within 30 minutes.
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
CEO: Jim Patterson, who was previously co-founder and CEO of Zinc and Chief Product Officer at Yammer.
Year Founded: 2014
Funding: $25 million total. The most recent round was a $13 million Series B, which closed in October 2016. Funding came from Fresh VC, DCM Ventures, and Tusk Ventures.
Competitors include: The MMJ space is a land grab, but one that exists in a legal fog. So, Eaze’s competition comes from several different directions, although not all of it is direct.
First, Eaze competes against the dispensaries that are not using their platform. Second, there are a ton of startups in this space, including Leafly, GreenRush, SpeedWeed, Grassp, Nugg, Meadow, Massroots, Indica Online, and Headset.
Finally, they are competing against the tobacco and alcohol lobbies, both of which would prefer to keep marijuana illegal, for fear that many consumers will curtail alcohol and tobacco usage in favor of cannabis products.
Why they’re in the Big 50-2017: Eaze performed well in all three phases of the Big50-2017 competition. They finished high in the online voting competition, have solid fundamentals (funding, team, market opp, biz model), and they were a content challenge winner (more on that soon).
While the MMJ market poses legal and financial challenges (such as even getting a bank account), this is a massive market with a ton of upside. Any first movers able to establish and maintain a strong foothold – as Eaze has done in several California cities – could morph into incumbents quickly.
