At a glance
BLAZE is business software for licensed cannabis retailers, delivery operators and related regulated merchants—not a flower, vape or edible brand. Founded by Chris Violas and Manh Do, it connects point of sale, inventory, e-commerce, payments, marketing, analytics and delivery so operators can manage the customer transaction and the compliance record in one system.
Chris Violas, Manh Do and the original problem
Violas came to cannabis after a serious soccer injury ended his Division I playing career. He later ran a delivery service on California’s Central Coast and found that the available software fragmented inventory, compliance and customer management. While working at Amazon Web Services, he brought the problem to AWS colleague Manh Do.
The pair began collaborating in 2015; Violas became cofounder and CEO and Do cofounder and CTO. BLAZE’s official timeline dates the company’s founding to 2017. The origin matters because the product was shaped by a retailer’s operational failure points, not by adapting a generic restaurant register after the fact.
Retail and point-of-sale products
The retail suite includes a web-based, hardware-agnostic POS, inventory and purchasing workflows, tax and compliance handling, analytics, customer check-in, customer-facing displays and self-service kiosks. BLAZEPAY adds cashless-payment products. Operators can connect state traceability systems and third-party services through integrations and APIs.
BLAZE’s website currently lists service for licensed cannabis operators across 20 U.S. states. The company also supports regulated vape, CBD and liquor retail in parts of Canada. That is software availability, not a claim that BLAZE holds the retailer’s cannabis license.
E-commerce, marketing and delivery
BLAZE ECOM supplies native online menus, websites, mobile apps, scan-to-shop and an AI shopping assistant. Marketing tools cover customer outreach, loyalty and wallet passes. Delivery products include a driver app and dispatch hub, allowing orders and inventory to remain connected to the retail system rather than being re-entered in separate software.
A Weedmaps integration moved menu and order information directly between the marketplace and BLAZE. That kind of connection reduces duplicate entry, but successful compliance still depends on configuration, accurate staff workflows and the operator’s state rules.
Funding and acquisitions
BLAZE raised seed funding in 2019, passed 500 retail stores in 2020 and announced an $8 million Series A in 2021. It acquired Vancouver-based Greenline in 2022, extending its POS footprint into Canada, then acquired cannabis e-commerce platform Tymber in 2023. In 2024 it launched BLAZEPAY as a payment facilitator and a browser-based POS.
These acquisitions explain why the current platform spans both the register and the online storefront. Greenline and Tymber were product and market expansions, not consumer cannabis labels.
The 2025 AI-first shift
In October 2025, BLAZE repositioned as an AI-first retail technology company and introduced BLAZE Labs and Herbie, its shopping assistant. The company says its system can support recommendations, inventory forecasting, product tagging, margin alerts and compliance checks. Those performance and ROI figures are vendor claims; retailers should validate them in their own pilot data.
Security and compliance controls
BLAZE’s security page states that it holds SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II reports, runs on AWS, supports business-associate agreements for applicable HIPAA workflows and uses encrypted transport, backups and key-management controls. SOC reports assess defined controls over a period; they are not a guarantee that a retailer cannot suffer an outage, configuration error or breach.
Customers, stores and awards
BLAZE sells subscriptions and implementation services to operators. It does not own a public dispensary chain and has no consumer cannabis product catalog. The company’s notable achievements are its store adoption, funding, acquisitions, payments launch and expanded product suite; fresh research did not identify a material product-award ledger that would improve the profile.
The High Rise read
BLAZE belongs in the directory because retail software shapes what consumers see: whether a menu matches inventory, an order reaches dispatch, loyalty credits persist and compliance data reconciles. A useful profile must explain founders, platform modules, acquisitions, security claims and the AI transition while keeping vendor metrics clearly attributed.