Investors often call them “pick-and-shovel” plays, referencing the clever merchants who sold tools to wide-eyed miners in the California Gold Rush—and often made lots more money doing it. But that designation, with its hint at opportunism, doesn’t seem fair to the providers of vital tech, information and other business-supporting services to cannabis clients.

See all of the GCT100 nominees for Technology & Business Services.

Business Services Winners

Cy Scott

Co-Founder & CEO
Headset
Seattle, WA, United States

Cy Scott has been involved in legal cannabis since co-founding Leafly as a strain- and dispensary-review site in 2010. Following Leafly’s sale to Privateer Holdings, he and his Leafly co-founders launched Headset in 2015. The company’s software provides retailers with a suite of management tools while feeding sales and consumer activity data into Headset’s analytics tools for suppliers. He hosts the “High Rise” podcast with Poseidon Investment’s Emily Paxhia, providing bi-weekly, data-based trend analysis of cannabis markets.

MORE ABOUT CY…
“If more brands were using [Headset] Bridge, I would easily save six hours per week.”
— Chelsea Hawkesby, Kind Delivery, Lake Elsinore, CA, United States

Roy Bingham &
Elisabeth Stahura

Co-Founders
BDSA Analytics
Louisville, CO, United States

Liz Stahura and Roy Bingham teamed up to found BDSA in 2015, recruiting a panel of Colorado retailers to build a by-SKU sales history of cannabis products dating back to Day 1 of U.S. adult-use sales in January 2014. Their POS-tracking in 14 states, consumer studies and market forecasting combine to unearth trends that companies have planned around ever since—including prescient reports on the rapid decline in flower’s market share post adult-use, rapid swings in brand share in new states, and the typical doubling of the active consumer base after legalization.

Bethany Gomez

Co-Founder &
Managing Director
Brightfield Group
Chicago, IL, United States

Bethany Gomez’s focus on “storytelling through meaningful data” has driven her company’s development of a broad array of datasets since its founding in 2015. Brightfield Group serves clients by training a wide-angle lens on the position of THC+ cannabis, CBD and, most recently, psychedelics within the broader and growing wellness industry. Bi-annual consumer surveys, combined with “share-of-shelf” tracking and by-category forecasting, allow marketers to analyze where products are in their life-cycles, concept-test new products, and focus funnel-optimization efforts.
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Tony Gallo

Founder & Managing Partner
Sapphire Risk Advisory Group
Dallas, TX, United States

Sapphire Risk’s Tony Gallo has overseen or advised on physical and operational security build-outs for more than 600 cannabis clients in 35 U.S. states and throughout Canada. Recognized by High Times as a top cannabis influencer and security expert, Gallo has spoken at more than 100 cannabis business conferences around the United States since 2013.

IT, Software & Web Services Winners

Justin Hartfield

Co-Founder & Chair Emeritus
WM Technology
Irvine, CA, United States

Justin Hartfield and Keith Hoerling founded WeedMaps (now WM Technology) in 2008 as a site for rating medical marijuana dispensaries. Under his tenure as CEO, the site grew to nearly 2 million monthly visitors with monthly revenue of $1.5 million. Dubbed the “first venture capitalist of the pot industry,” Hartfield and Co. took WM Technology public in 2021.

MORE ABOUT JUSTIN…
“There’s a new stoner’s paradise on the Web… where medical marijuana patients can connect with other patients in their area.”
— The New York Daily News
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Ryan Smith &
Zach Silverman

Co-Founders, LeafLink
New York, NY, United States

Ryan Smith and Zach Silverman are the brains behind Leaflink, one of the cannabis industry’s leading B2B technology platforms providing supply chain optimization services. LeafLink currently processes approximately $5 billion in annual transactions. In early 2023, Leaflink secured $100 million in Series D financing.

Ross & Zach Lipson

Co-Founders, Dutchie
Bend, OR, United States

Ross and Zach Lipson’s Dutchie, a cannabis e-commerce platform with more than 5,000 retail clients and $14 billion in annual sales processed, was valued at $3.75 billion 12 months before the brothers were voted out by Dutchie’s board of directors in December 2022. A lawsuit is pending.

Eric Boone

CEO, Meristematix.io
Lisbon, Portugal

Eric Boone has been working in global cannabis markets since 2009. His company Meristematix leverages AI to help optimize supply chains and help governments identify ideal tax rates for cannabis. Boone is also on the Seattle Hempfest board and is a tech advisor to Canada’s independent cannabis certification agency, CQA.

MORE ABOUT ERIC…
“Eric Boone has been working in cannabis markets worldwide since 2009 when he took the helm of one of the first publicly traded cannabis companies. Although currently based in Lisbon, Portugal working with emerging cannabis markets in Europe, he is still active in U.S. and Canadian projects—including his leadership role with Seattle Hempfest. Eric is committed to Seattle Hempfest’s vision of a world where the environmental and therapeutic benefits that cannabis presents are realized; a world without a single person incarcerated over its personal use, sale or cultivation.”
— Vivian McPeak, Founder, Seattle Hempfest