Colton Griffin

Flourish Software CEO Colton Griffin spent his first few years as a software engineer designing supply-chain-management software for Fortune 500 businesses before realizing similar software providers were largely ignoring the cannabis industry.

“We kind of fell into cannabis,” Griffin says.

In 2017, a California-based cultivator contacted him to help their business with inventory management. At the time, the software products available were limited and most of them didn’t have simple functions such as the option to manage non-cannabis inventory.

“There was a huge focus in the software market on the retail side,” Griffin says. “But for supply-chain operations there really wasn’t an investment in that, and that is where we came in and where we are continuing to find success.”

Flourish’s software platform was specifically built for cannabis and hemp operators, while also providing the levels of service traditional industries have enjoyed for years.

Flourish can be used by any business using Metrc for its traceability system, as well as businesses in states that that allow different seed-to-sale software.

“For me it’s about really maturing the conversation in this space and getting ready for federal legalization,” Griffin says. “There’s real-world compliance, not Metrc compliance, that is going to come into play, and we’re focused on making sure those best practices are ingrained into the software so our customer base can be competitive at that time.”