By Jane Lanhee Lee
(Reuters) – Cannabis e-commerce platform Dutchie on Thursday said it raised $350 million in its latest funding round that valued the company at $3.75 billion.
The massive funding round is Dutchie’s second this year. The Bend, Oregon-based company raised $200 million in March when it was valued at $1.7 billion.
“Dutchie works with over 5000 dispensaries across all legal geographies in North America and processes over $14 billion in annualized sales for our dispensaries,” Ross Lipson, CEO and co-founder of Dutchie told Reuters. He said the number of dispensaries more than doubled in the past year.
The surge in cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic and expectation of more states legalizing cannabis has increased investments in the industry.
Dutchie’s latest funding round was led by venture capital firm D1 Capital Partners and previous investors, including Tiger Global, Dragoneer, DFJ Growth, Thrive Capital, and Snoop Dog’s Casa Verde Capital participated, the company said.
Lipson said the funding will be used to double down on research and development for its products. It takes a license fee from dispensaries that use the Dutchie e-commerce platform to sell to consumers. Lipson said the transactions were still mostly in cash as credit card networks have still not opened up for cannabis transactions.
“We feel like we’re just scratching the surface as an industry and also as a company here at Dutchie and there’s a lot of runway ahead of us,” said Lipson.
(Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Aurora Ellis)