BLAZE is retail software for licensed cannabis dispensaries and delivery services, based in Anaheim Hills, California, and run by co-founder and CEO Chris Violas and co-founder and CTO Manh Do. It puts point of sale, online ordering, payments, delivery dispatch, loyalty and reporting on one system. In August 2026 the company listed availability in 22 states plus Washington, D.C.
BLAZE sells to operators, not consumers. Its product pages also pitch the platform to vape, CBD and liquor retailers, and its customer roster in 2026 runs from Devil's Lettuce in West Seneca, New York to Frostbite Dispensary and Potmates.
From a central coast delivery service to AWS
Violas, a former Division I college athlete, launched a cannabis delivery service on California's central coast and saw how badly the industry needed better software. He later worked at Amazon Web Services, and in 2015 he teamed up with AWS colleague Manh Do to build an all-in-one system for cannabis retail. The company dates BLAZE itself to 2017.
The founders sit atop a bench that includes chief product officer Kai Kirk, VP of AI Scott Roehrick, chief legal officer Paul Violas, VP of engineering Tiago Pais and VP of growth Shahbaaz Kara Virani.
Seed round, Series A and two acquisitions
BLAZE raised a seed round in 2019 and passed 500 retail stores in 2020. On April 1, 2021 it closed an $8 million Series A to keep building out the product suite, working then from Newport Beach, California. Inc. ranked it No. 916 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies.
Two acquisitions filled the gaps. In May 2022 BLAZE bought Vancouver point-of-sale company Greenline, led by CEO Albert Kim, giving retailers one software provider on both sides of the border. In January 2023 it added Tymber, the e-commerce platform behind branded dispensary websites, marketing automation and cashless payments. BLAZE's announcement quoted TechCrunch calling Tymber the backbone of thousands of online dispensaries.
Point of sale, e-commerce and delivery modules
The product map breaks into four groups:
- Point of sale: Retail Point of Sale, Cashless Payments, Customer Facing Display, Self-Serve Kiosk and Analytics Reporting.
- E-commerce: Online Menu, Headless API, Website Builder, Mobile Application, AI Budtender and Scan to Shop.
- Marketing: Marketing Suite, Customer Outreach, Customer Loyalty and Wallet Passes.
- Delivery: Driver App and Dispatch Hub.
Under the hood, BLAZE runs entirely on AWS and holds AICPA SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II certifications. Encryption keys live in FIPS 140-2 validated hardware security modules, and backups land in multiple locations throughout the day.
BLAZEPAY and the Weedmaps catalog
BLAZEPAY arrived in 2024 as a payment facilitator, alongside a web-based POS. On June 16, 2025 the company added BLAZEPAY ACH, a bank-backed option built on Scan-to-Pay. Shoppers scan a QR code, link a bank account and pay in one click, while merchants get same-day ACH and next-day access to funds.
Weedmaps is the long-running partner. In November 2020 the two companies wired Weedmaps Orders directly into the BLAZE point of sale, with single sign-on for menu updates. On June 25, 2024 they launched a Global Product Catalog that draws on Weedmaps' database of more than 340,000 unique cannabis products to auto-populate BLAZE menus.
Herbie and the AI-first turn
On October 27, 2025 BLAZE declared itself an AI-first cannabis retail technology company and opened BLAZE Labs, an in-house incubator for AI features. The headline tool is Herbie, an AI budtender inside BLAZE ECOM that answers open-ended shopper questions with product and promotion suggestions. Herbie ran in beta at MJBizCon and went to wide release in January 2026.
The 2025 release list also included AI Product Recommendations, the Lighthouse AI dashboard in beta, BLAZE Sites, Company Promotions, Metrc Retail ID integration and a Customer-Facing Display iOS app. New integrations that year covered Sage, Alpine IQ, Prelude, Divvy and Skoop. The team worked more than 50 cannabis events in over 10 states in 2025, from Hall of Flowers to MJBizCon.
BLAZE in the 2026 POS race
BLAZE sizes itself up against Dutchie, Treez, Flowhub and Meadow in an August 2026 comparison guide, and it quotes pricing per operator rather than publishing a flat rate. The same guide credits Dutchie with dominance in online ordering and pitches BLAZE on a single system for POS, e-commerce, payments, delivery, native apps, kiosks, loyalty and reporting.
The case studies keep landing. Devil's Lettuce, a family-owned dispensary in West Seneca, runs BLAZE Retail, BLAZEPAY, BLAZE ECOM, BLAZE Sites, BLAZE Apps, BLAZE Kiosk, BLAZE Delivery and BLAZE Growth. In a September 17, 2026 write-up, the shop reported 30% faster transactions, 50% faster payment settlement and an 80% jump in order pickup after the switch.