Surfside, a knowledge and marketing platform aimed immediately at the Cannabis business, has in the present day introduced the shut of a $4 million seed spherical led by Casa Verde. The agency’s managing associate, Karan Wadhera, will be part of the Surfside board.
The startup is comparatively new, however helmed by two founders skilled in the marketing and knowledge house. Jon Lowen and Michael Blanche each hail from SITO Mobile, the place they labored on location-based promoting and marketing by way of cell units.
The duo has constructed a platform that makes use of a lot of the similar rules to carry higher marketing acumen and methods to bbusinesses in the cannabis house.
One of the main marketing challenges for dispensaries and cannabis manufacturers is that the common channels by means of which small manufacturers promote — Facebook and Google — are usually not accessible to them. Not solely are these highly effective marketing channels, however additionally they present useful analytics about potential and present clients.
Surfside appears to fill that hole in the cannabis house, providing companies knowledge round their clients utilizing a mixture of present knowledge, publicly accessible knowledge, loyalty program knowledge, and so on. to assist these manufacturers higher perceive their clients.
The startup creates profiles of consumers, seeking to perceive their location, their different pursuits, and different essential particulars that may assist manufacturers and companies market and promote to each present and new clients.
But Surfside truly goes a step additional and develops campaigns for these companies, permitting them to work one-on-one with a marketing skilled to develop and activate these campaigns.
Originally, Surfside generated income by way of the marketing campaign itself, taking a reduce of the spend.
“We’re nearly an extension of the marketing departments at a dispensary,” stated Lowen. “Small dispensaries don’t essentially have the bandwidth to run these campaigns or log into additional software program. Our crew will help plan, execute and get the most worth out of the knowledge for them. Now, we wish to begin empowering manufacturers, retailers, dispensaries as they progress to have the ability to have possession of the knowledge, with these client insights and analysis at their fingertips, and provides them the capability to determine in the event that they wish to activate on their very own or proceed utilizing the specialists we’ve got right here.”
With this new financing, the firm is including one other income stream by means of its knowledge platform, permitting cannabis companies to buy a SaaS license. This means, companies who’d like to make use of the knowledge however develop their very own campaigns and marketing methods have the choice to take action.
Surfside believes that their technology can develop effectively past cannabis and into different verticals, however see a chance in the cannabis house to develop and construct alongside the burgeoning business.
Moreover, the sophisticated regulatory panorama in the cannabis house permits Surfside to grow to be a compliance monitor, as effectively, which can find yourself being one more income stream for the firm.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/10/surfside-a-marketing-technology-for-the-cannabis-space-inhales-4-million/