Dutchie raises $350 million for cannabis e-commerce platform

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Dutchie raises $350 million for cannabis e-commerce platform

Dutchie cannabis e-commerce platform said on Thursday raised $350 million in its latest funding round valued the company at $3.75 billion.

The massive funding round is Dutchie's second funding round in 2014. The Oregon-based company raised $200 million in March when it was valued at $1.7 billion.

Dutchie handles over 5000 dispensaries across all legal geographies in North America and processes over $14 billion in annual sales for our dispensaries, Ross Lipson, CEO and co-founder of Dutchie, told Reuters. In the past year, he said the number of dispensaries doubled in the last one year.

The surge in cannabis use during the COVID pandemic and expectation that more states will legalize cannabis has increased investment in the industry.

The latest round of funding was led by the venture capital firm D 1 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 has said the money will be used to double down on research and development for its products. It is charging a license fee from dispensaries that sell to consumers using the Dutchie eCommerce platform. Lipson told 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 a company here at Dutchie and there is a lot of runway ahead of us, said Lipson.