Tech Roots

San Diego may not be the first city that pops into your mind when it comes to hot tech companies. While it’s not quite Silicon Valley in terms of housing an array of major tech corporations, it is leading the way when it comes to cannabis-based tech startups. So much so, that the famed Boulder-based cannabis business accelerator, Canopy, expanded to the west coast and opened a San Diego branch.

Currently, there are eight promising cannabis business tech startups that Canopy San Diego is helping to roll out and establish part of the company’s spring class. Six of those startups are from San Diego: Traffic Roots helps bring digital display advertising to the cannabis world; MJ Hybrid Solutions is a customer service training software company for cannabis sales professionals; EventHi is the very first cannabis-based event ticketing software; Verticann is the first ever turnkey vertical cannabis growing system designed for commercial cannabis grows; and finally Collectif—a peer-to-peer social app to help cannabis enthusiasts find accommodations and experiences suited to consuming cannabis.

“Being a San Diego entrepreneur, I’ve seen that it has been a perfect opportunity to launch a cannabis startup in this community.”

Additionally, in Canopy’s fall 2016 class there were also three San Diego-based startups: Direct Cannabis Network, Loose-Leaf Technology and Inner Peace LifeStyle Gear.

Jack Scatizzi, Managing Director of Canopy San Diego, told CULTURE why Canopy chose San Diego as its newest home base. “The reason we started Canopy San Diego is that the California market in general is huge, and with cannabis it’s even bigger. You’re talking about a large economy in general,” Scatizzi said. “We also have deep ties to the tech community in San Diego. At the end of the day, we’re a tech accelerator, and our companies are tech companies, so they need to be connected to the tech community.”

California represented 60 percent of the medical market in 2015. In 2016, the California market was bigger than Oregon, Washington and Colorado combined. Founder & CEO of Direct Cannabis Network and member of the San Diego chapter of Women Grow, talked to CULTURE about why she thinks San Diego is the perfect place for cannabis business startups. “Being a San Diego entrepreneur, I’ve seen that it has been a perfect opportunity to launch a cannabis startup in this community,” Carrillo said. “We have a strong entrepreneur network outside of cannabis.”

San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation even stated that San Diego’s technology industry provided employment for 68,825 individuals at 3,270 companies in 2015; imagine what the cannabis tech growth could do for the larger San Diego technology industry in the coming years.