Exclusive Interview with Canix Co-Founder and CEO Stacey Hronowski
Seed-to-sale platform Canix is looking to become the default ERP system for cannabis operators across North America. Since Co-Founder and CEO Stacey Hronowski last spoke with New Cannabis Ventures in 2020, the company has more than doubled its U.S. market reach and entered international markets. Hronowski sat down with New Cannabis Ventures again to share an update on the company’s growth over that past two years and plans to become a dominant cannabis technology player.
Listen to the entire interview or read the summary below:
Investing in the Team
Canix is lead by its two technical co-founders: Hronowski and Artem Pasyechnyk. Their technical background fuels their ability to listen to customers and implement their feedback. Other talent has come onboard to help guide the company forward. Amy Dearth joined the Canix as Head of Customer Experience. Emile Petrone came onboard as Senior Product Manager, and the company made its first marketing hire with Director of Marketing Madison Hampton. The company will also be using the funding at its disposal to continue growing its engineering team.
The Canix Product Suite
Since 2020, Canix has added significantly to its platform. It has introduced more task management, cultivation forecasting and harvest health monitoring capabilities. The company has also built out a comprehensive reporting suite.
Product costing is one of the most significant areas of focus for Canix. Customers are looking for the ability to calculate and optimize cost per gram, and this has become the core functionality of Canix, according to Hronowski.
As a growing technology company, Canix is naturally adding to its product suite. It continues to hone in product costing, working to offer its customers flexible, robust and automated product costing and the ability to calculate profit per gram across strain, harvest batch, manufacturing batch and by employee.
The Canix team is also looking to leverage the data collection required for compliance to create tools for cultivation forecasting. Ultimately, the company wants to help operators predict how much they will be able to make in advance and how to plan for desired cultivation output.
Approximately 38 percent of Canix’s operators are already transacting with one another, according to Hronowski. The company is planning to make that process even more efficient with functionality like automatically including all metadata associated with inventory that is being sold from one license to another, as well as automatically created sales orders and purchase orders.
Canix Clients and Footprint
When Hronowski spoke with New Cannabis Ventures in 2020, Canix had customers in seven states. Today, its market reach spans 16 U.S. states, and the company has a presence in Canada and Australia.
Canix works across the cultivation, manufacturing and distribution verticals in cannabis. While companies focused on a single vertical can use Canix, the company is focused on vertically integrated operators that use all three of company’s modules. It works with single-state operators, like Ladybug Farms in California, as well as some of the larger MSOs. The company is looking to capture more than 20 percent ERP market share across major cannabis operators this year.
Markets of interest for expansion include New York and Illinois. Canix has a solid presence in states that use the Metrc compliance system, and it is exploring more opportunities in states that use BioTrack.
Many seed-to-sale platforms compete in the cannabis space. Some take a broad approach, offering to do everything for its users, while others go deep and focus on doing one thing well. Canix strives to strike a balance of both breadth and depth.
For now, the company is growing organically. While M&A is not at the forefront of the company’s strategy now, the opportunity could arise in the future.
Series A
Canix announced its $10 million Series A in June. The raise drew participation from investors like Phyto Partners, Converge VC, Altair VC and Emles Ventures. Some of the Series A investors have been with Canix since its seed round, according to Hronowski. The Canix team has worked to build and maintain those relationships through transparency. The company will continue to use hard metrics, rather than vision along, to back its future fundraising efforts.
Funding from the company’s Series A will be primarily used to drive product development, but it will also help to support the company’s sales and marketing efforts. Hronowski also wants Canix to provide educational content on the industry.
The Outlook for Canix
Canix has approximately 400 customers across its 16-state U.S. footprint. It plans to triple revenue compared to last year, according to Hronowski. The company’s growth will be driven by its expansion across North America and its growth with larger customers, like leading MSOs. Hronowski sees Canix as the product best positioned to service the largest players in cannabis right now.
As Canix goes after leading market share, the company prioritizes the value of listening to its customers. Translating customer feedback into product experiences has driven the company’s success, and Hronowski is invested in keeping that ability ingrained in the company’s DNA as it grows.
To learn more, visit the Canix website. Listen to the entire interview:
