GrowerIQ secures $1M from government to enhance its Cannabis-tracking system
Canadian Cannabis Software Company GrowerIQ Receives $1M in Government Funding.
Toronto-based GrowerIQ, which sells enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to cannabis producers, has been awarded over $1 million CAD by the Government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario.
GrowerIQ founder and CEO Andrew Wilson told BetaKit that this funding will help GrowerIQ scale up its tech and expand its global footprint through investments in sales and marketing.
GrowerIQ aims to offer growers “seed-to-sale traceability.”
GrowerIQ’s ERP platform helps cannabis growers manage their businesses and meet regulatory requirements. As Wilson previously told BetaKit, the compliance burden associated with growing cannabis legally is “so high that it’s very easy [for producers] to get out of control [or] to fall behind.”
Founded in 2018, GrowerIQ sells its software on a subscription basis to licensed cannabis producers. The startup’s platform has modules for teams across the cannabis growing process, including cultivation, manufacturing, warehouse, customer relationship management, orders, and quality management.
Through its software, which has been built to comply with Health Canada’s regulatory framework and integrate directly with cannabis producers’ sensors and other hardware, GrowerIQ hopes to offer growers “seed-to-sale traceability.”
As BetaKit reported, GrowerIQ bootstrapped for four years before closing $3 million in seed funding a year ago in a convertible note round co-led by Golden Section and MaRS IAF, with participation from Lago, Delbridge, GTMfund, and Gaingels.
Today, GrowerIQ serves facilities in 15 countries and five languages, including some countries where cannabis is legal for recreational use, others where it is only permitted for medicinal reasons, and some that produce but only export marijuana.
Right now, GrowerIQ has a strong presence in Canada, which first legalized recreational marijuana in October 2018. But Wilson sees more room for GrowerIQ to expand abroad, noting that the startup’s presence outside of Canada has been growing—including through a recently announced five-year partnership with the Government of Barbados.
Earlier this summer, GrowerIQ inked a deal with the Barbados Medicinal Cannabis Licensing Authority (BMCLA) to serve as its tech partner. BMCLA is the regulatory body responsible for overseeing Barbados’ medicinal cannabis industry. As part of this five-year contract, GrowerIQ will manage the tracking and reporting of legal marijuana production in Barbados.
