Tiger Global Joins Snoop Dogg’s Fund in Cannabis Software Push

(Bloomberg) -- Tiger Global Management is joining with Casa Verde Capital -- the marijuana venture fund backed by the rapper Snoop Dogg -- to lead a $50 million funding round for a company that supplies software to the burgeoning legal industry.

The company, Metrc, was launched in 2013 for Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division after the state legalized the sale of recreational weed. The software is now used in 11 states and Washington D.C., letting growers, sellers and regulators “track-and-trace” legal cannabis, according to a statement.

With recreational cannabis now legal in Canada and several U.S. states, investors have poured billions into the industry. But with America’s federal prohibition still in place, some firms avoid investing in companies that “touch the plant” -- industry jargon for businesses that directly grow, distribute or sell cannabis. Casa Verde has kept its investments away from the actual marijuana plant, seeing an easier path to growth in areas like software amid the tangle of U.S. regulations.

“This is a way to play the broader theme,” said Karan Wadhera, the firm’s managing partner. “It’s much more about scalability than anything else.”

This is the second time that Tiger Global, Chase Coleman’s $28 billion investment firm, and Casa Verde have partnered on a marijuana software investment. Earlier this year, they invested in Green Bits, a developer of compliance software for cannabis businesses.

Tiger Global declined to comment.

--With assistance from Hema Parmar and Melissa Karsh.

To contact the reporter on this story: Craig Giammona in New York at cgiammona@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anne Riley Moffat at ariley17@bloomberg.net, Lisa Wolfson

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.