
Eaze, cannabis delivery company, raises 27M - jack_hanford
https://www.eaze.com/blog/posts/eaze-continues-advancing-cannabis-industry-additional-27m-raised
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aphextron
There's something really disturbing about this given the fact that people are
still rotting in jail in this country for selling a dime bag in the 90's. The
time for federal prohibition to come to an end is far overdue.

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chrshawkes
Is that exaggerated or do you really have confirmation of somebody serving
time in prison for minor pot dealings? I would be willing to be most serving
time in prisons for pot were moving quite a bit of product, which would still
be illegal even in legalized pot states today.

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ryen
There are many cases of extended time served for small personal amounts of
marijuana. Especially after "tough on crime" effort and 3-strikes laws that
permeated throughout the country starting in the 90s. Obama vacated many
federal sentences before his term ended, but that didn't cover prisoners in
state and county prisons.

Plenty of press and articles around this over the past few years.

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taheca
I think that this is true, but didn't Obama have a massive wave of Pardons of
people like this before he left office?

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techntoke
Didn't Google invent a search engine? People are still being incarcerated for
long periods of time for minor marijuana offenses (well under a pound). This
isn't news.

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conductr
Maybe I'm missing something, but why are X delivery companies a thing? Why not
have just a delivery company? This is a case where I can't even think of any
special handling being required, but I wouldn't be a customer so may be
ignorant to something.

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Apocryphon
In the case of Eaze it's delivery for a market with a very unique regulatory
and logistical nature. As opposed to say, food.

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tikhonj
I might be missing a joke, but food _also_ has a unique regulatory and
logistical nature. Amazon and Walmart.com have had trouble expanding to
groceries for this very reason, and that's why they've been partnering with or
acquiring grocery delivery startups.

Food essentially requires its own supply chain and has its own health
regulations. Consumer preferences for food shopping also seem to be distinctly
different from preferences on other classes of products.

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kingnothing
Serious question: Are the investors not at risk for being charged with a
federal RICO case given that marijuana is illegal at that level in the US?
Legally, it's no different than them investing in a heroin or cocaine ring.

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swampthinker
That delivery spike on 4/20 is amusing to see. I suspect it will become the
equivalent of Christmas sales volume for Cannabis vendors.

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edoceo
Gets them another 27mo of runway, according to the other article that they
burn 1m/mo. Wow, how can they be burning that much?

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KGIII
Doritos, I presume.

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sbinthree
Why would (largest regional pharmacy retailer) supply chain not be able to win
this market? Already has all those hard assets in place with ops, people,
efficiencies, etc.

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htormey
Distribution. Many cities have different rules about if and where you can
place a shop that can sells Marijuana. The corner store beside your house is
not going to be selling weed anytime soon. Hence delivery is very handy.

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dig247
I get the need for runway given the burn rate at 1 mil/month. I just can't
understand the investors motivation. What does annual revenue really look
like? Meadow raised just over 2 mil and is close to profitability. It all just
seems a tad excessive in terms of cap raise, burn and realistic growth. But
again, just keep raising capital, eventual you can IPO and dump it on a bunch
of retail guys.

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mikeh1010
Congrats to Eaze! I run a popular networking event for CannaTech professionals
in Denver and while it's a little scary to see Silicon Valley coming after
this area that Colorado has been dominating, it's a good thing for the
industry in general. Stigma and risk has kept a lot of top talent away and
it's exciting to see that finally starting to change!

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koverda
Glad to see some increasing activity for funding in the cannabis space.
Prohibition is lifting, and it is exciting to watch it happen.

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40acres
It's a bit surprising to see that they've raised so much. Given that Eaze is
only available in California and they will need a very local approach to deal
with city by city and state by state regulations which have slight
differences.

I can definitely see an Uber/Lyft dynamic emerge in the marijuana delivery
space.

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philfrasty
I wonder if the increasing cannabis accessibility leads to an increase in
smoking? Lots of friends of mine never smoked but started „smoking“ cannabis,
usually combined with tobacco (vapors not used once). Kind of a sad
development in my opinion when lots of countries are pushing hard for a
smokefree life.

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sremani
Can the VC be implicated for financing distribution of controlled substances ?
There could be enough grounds for Banks to terminating their relationship with
Bailey Capital et al. Why would a venture capital firm expose themselves to
this, when its not even legal in half of the country?

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aphextron
>Can the VC be implicated for financing distribution of controlled substances
? There could be enough grounds for Banks to terminating their relationship
with Bailey Capital et al.

Yes, and yes.

>Why would a venture capital firm expose themselves to this, when its not even
legal in half of the country?

Because selling weed is basically printing money

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nicodjimenez
I hope they can invest at least some of this money into 5 minute drone
deliveries.

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javajosh
Marijuana delivery by drone is already illegal or will be in the next 5
minutes. (Which is too bad because it is a very elegant solution.)

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TaylorAlexander
High value, light weight. Sounds perfect. Customers would appreciate the Wow
factor too.

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nkrisc
Sounds perfect for intercepting!

