January 31, 2024
Canadian cannabis technology company GrowerIQ has acquired fellow cannabis software provider Ample Organics. The financial terms of the deal, which closed in December 2023, were not disclosed.
The acquisition brings the two competitors together and returns Ample to Canadian ownership. Ample, a Toronto-based company, had been acquired in July 2020 by Denver, Colorado-based cannabis compliance software company Akerna for $46 million CAD.
GrowerIQ was founded in 2018, when Canada first legalized recreational marijuana. The company sells enterprise resource planning software to licensed cannabis producers, with modules for teams across the cannabis growing process, including cultivation, manufacturing, warehouse, customer relationship management, orders, and quality management. GrowerIQ’s software has been built to comply with Health Canada’s regulatory framework and integrates directly with cannabis producers’ sensors and other hardware.
Ample has developed technology to support cannabis businesses since 2014. The company operates a “seed-to-sale platform” that offers tracking, reporting, and compliance tools to various stakeholders, including producers, distributors, physicians, laboratories, retailers, and educators.
The acquisition signifies a major expansion in GrowerIQ’s footprint. According to Grower IQ founder and CEO Andrew Wilson, the deal creates “the largest cannabis tech platform in Canada,” positioning the start-up as a market leader in Canada and in Europe. Similar sentiments were expressed by Ample founder and former CEO John Prentice, who stated that “[t]he combined expertise and resources of both teams will undoubtedly create brilliant solutions for licensed cannabis producers globally.”
Author: Olivia Oliveros Leiva, 2023/2024 Articling Student-at-Law
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