Following the legalization of marijuana in more than 20 states and the booming business in recreational marijuana, Microsoft is forming a partnership with Kind Financial, a Los Angeles based startup that supports the cannabis industry.
As part of the arrangement, the Microsoft’s state and local government team will actively pitch the marijuana software to government entities that put out requests for proposals in accordance with legislation requiring tracking of legal cannabis commerce.
The collaboration will be known as Kind Government Solutions and Kind will join a created Microsoft Health and Human Services pod for managed service providers with a goal of leveraging both companies’ resources to provide state and local governments with purpose-built solutions for track-and-trace technology.
Kind Financial is a software company that makes technology and tools to help marijuana-related businesses navigate the many rules and regulations in the various states that allow the sale of marijuana.
Track-and-trace is known as “seed-to-sale” in the cannabis industry, and KIND’s Agrisoft Seed to Sale for Government is a platform for governments and regulatory agencies to regulate and monitor all aspects of cannabis compliance.
The cannabis tracking program will be offered on Microsoft’s Azure Government cloud platform, which a KIND executive stated is the “only cloud platform designed to meet government standards for the closely regulated cannabis compliance programs.”
“No one can predict the future of cannabis legalization, however, it is clear that legalized cannabis will always be subject to strict oversight and regulations similar to alcohol and tobacco; and, Kind is proud to offer governments and regulatory agencies the tools and technology to monitor cannabis compliance,” said Kind’s CEO, David Dinenberg.
