Thrive Society Founders Danielle Dao and Devin Calloway Tap Into The Wholesale Cannabis Market With Their Integrated Farmers Program
Eco Farm Holdings is a managed cannabis services provider rooted in commodity oil manufacturing and wholesale distribution. Their recent efforts in expansion include a private label, Lifted Legacy, which is currently available in 75 retail dispensaries and the data-backed integrated farmers program run via the Thrive Society marketplace.
The LA Enthusiast caught up with the founders at their Apple store inspired showroom in Hollywood, CA and got an inside take on this innovative business. Check out the full write up below!
Company Highlights
- Thrive Society is a managed cannabis services provider addressing a $4-$5 billion market opportunity nationwide.
- Active clients include hundreds of legacy farms in Northern California with an average of 10,000 sq ft per canopy.
- Provides wholesale distribution for lab-tested products with valid certificates of analysis.
- Recently launched a futures exchange allowing bids on upcoming harvests in addition to the thriving marketplace.
- Offers credible market insights driven by platform data.
- Upcoming fintech partnership to provide integrated farmers with liquidity options.
- Market maker for wholesale bulk cannabis.
Thrive Society is a membership based cannabis distribution platform that leverages underlying technology and a distribution license in the state to facilitate transactions between cannabis cultivators and end buyers. The story begins several years ago in Mendocino County. With years of experience in the cannabis industry, co-founders and co-CEOs, Devin Calloway and Danielle Dao, set up their own cultivation operation with a focus on clean products and sustainability for all stakeholders. The team grew the business to include distribution in Santa Rosa and began manufacturing bulk commodity oils like crude oil and distillate.
At the start, finding clean biomass (trim and other material for extraction) on a consistent basis proved to be a challenge. The second challenge was that farmers were reluctant to sell them trim and nothing else. Given their extensive relationships with farmers and buyers, expanding the distribution operation seemed like a solid next step. Not only did this give them access to clean trim needed for manufacturing, it eventually led to the creation of Thrive Society and the Integrated Farmers Program.
The Integrated Farmers Program or IFP has grown to support over 400 farms in the last two years. Devin also works as CTO of the company, leading the buildout with a team of developers. The online marketplace service includes automated onboarding, automated billing and accounting, automated inventory control and much more. The platform allows buyers to outsource part of their go to market strategy and helps them create long term value with contracts without having to deal with the complexity of setting these functions up in house. Buyers benefit from essentially outsourcing their procurement process.
Getting set up on the site is simple. Sellers can be cultivators or distributors, they just have to submit their licenses to operate and company financials to the team for approval. Once confirmed, the seller creates a cultivator profile that includes the canopy square footage, plants per cycle, and other metrics. If they don’t have all this information available, projections can be provided based on data collected from similar farms. From there, memberships are offered at a three tier structure allowing farmers to select a program that works best for them.
One of the most interesting features of the platform is the market intelligence. This advanced insights feature will be rolling out for the sellers with Silver and Gold memberships, giving them snapshots of their seller history, average sale price, and other key metrics specific to their accounts. Integrated farmers will also receive insights and analytics on the market at large based on real time data collected from the platform. Bronze members are not able to see comparable prices on the market or their inventory information, but can participate in spot sales with total pricing control and payout transparency.
The online platform is supplemented by two showrooms. One in Hollywood and the other in Santa Rosa. Because of this the company operates on a 2lb model where sellers must provide 2 sample pounds to be made available on site for potential buyers. Once the product is in hand the team creates media assets and notifies interested clients. Sellers can choose to upload their own lab testing or have it submitted to a third-party for testing. Due to the strict compliance tests in California, a large percentage of the sellers opt-in for this testing service.
“The Thrive Society integrated farmers program is StockX meets Apple Store showroom meets Alibaba and Amazon!” – Devin, Co-Founder / Co-CEO / CTO / President of Eco Farm Holdings PBC
Thrive Society currently focuses on the upstream and midstream segments of the cannabis market. The company hopes to stabilize the industry and increase efficiencies by enabling cultivators, sellers, and buyers to make data driven production decisions based on valid and up to date inputs. Further down the line, Thrive Society wants to develop B2C platforms to get more real time insights on the consumer side of the market and provide an even clearer look at market trends for the cultivators, and distributors.
