Leafly is the Seattle cannabis marketplace and newsroom that turned a strain lookup site into a menu, ordering and advertising business. Its strain library, dispensary listings and Leafly News run across the U.S. and Canada, and the company says more than 4,600 retailers and 7,800 brands use the platform, with over 4 million orders placed each year.
Peter Lee took over as chief executive in November 2025. In March 2026, Leafly crowned Hash Burger its Strain of the Year for 2025.
Three developers in Irvine, 2010
Scott Vickers, Brian Wansolich and Cy Scott launched Leafly in Irvine, California, on June 13, 2010, as a cannabis information site. Privateer Holdings acquired it in 2011, and Brendan Kennedy became CEO. The company moved its base to Seattle, where it still sits in 2026.
Leafly went after the mainstream early. On August 2, 2014, it ran what Wikipedia describes as the first cannabis-company advertisement in The New York Times. Chris Jeffery took the CEO job on November 6, 2017, and Tim Leslie followed on March 4, 2019. Yoko Miyashita led the company from August 18, 2020, until November 21, 2025.
From Nasdaq to the OTC market
Leafly became a public company through a merger with the blank-check firm Merida Merger Corp. I, which closed on February 4, 2022. Shares started trading on Nasdaq as LFLY on February 7, 2022. A 1-for-20 reverse stock split took effect on September 12, 2023.
Nasdaq suspended trading on January 17, 2025, and the stock and warrants moved to the OTC Pink Open Market under LFLY and LFLYW. Leafly said the switch would have no effect on its business or operations. Its November 2025 leadership release listed the shares on OTC Markets as LFLYD.
Peter Lee runs Leafly in 2026
Lee came in through the listing deal. He was president, CFO and a board member of Merida Merger Corp., joined Leafly's board in 2022 and was named president and chief operating officer on May 7, 2024. The board made him CEO on November 26, 2025, after Miyashita resigned as CEO and director.
His background is investing. Lee was managing partner of the hedge fund Sentinel Rock Capital from 2011 to 2018, with earlier stops at Spring Point Capital, Blackstone Kailix, Tiger Management and Morgan Stanley Capital Partners. He holds a business degree from UC Berkeley's Haas School and an MBA from Stanford. Suresh Krishnaswamy serves as CFO.
Menus, listings and the ad business
Leafly's 2024 annual report calls it a "content-first, community-driven, multi-sided marketplace." It does not sell cannabis or process payments. Retailers pay for standard or pro subscriptions that carry menus and order reservations, and brands pay for product listings and advertising.
Retailers brought in 86.3% of 2024 revenue and brands 13.7%. At the end of 2024, Leafly counted more than 14,000 retail listings, about 3,300 of them paid, plus 5.1 million average monthly visitors and 111 employees. The same filing names Weedmaps as its direct marketplace competitor, with Dutchie and Jane on the e-commerce side and High Times among media rivals.
The strain library and Leafly News
The database is the original product. Leafly says it catalogs more than 5,000 strains, over 1.3 million product reviews and more than 11,000 articles and resources, and it runs apps on iOS and Android plus Leafly.ca in Canada.
Leafly News spans Cannabis 101, growing, strains and products, politics, science and tech, industry, reports, podcasts and Leafly Lists. Its data desk publishes the annual Leafly Jobs Report. The fifth edition, published February 23, 2022, counted 428,059 full-time-equivalent U.S. jobs supported by legal cannabis.
A monthly strain column by Morgan Rosendale ranks ten picks, five new and five returning, as a running hunt for the next winner. The September 2026 edition, updated September 8, named Compound Genetics' Glitter Bomb and Seed Junky's Scented Marker among its picks.
Strain of the Year, from Gelato to Hash Burger
Strain of the Year is the annual award from the Leafly newsroom. The methodology tracks year-over-year changes in menu availability across roughly 8,000 store menus, plus search traffic, orders and a poll of nearly 1,000 budtenders. "Advertisers cannot influence a Leafly Strain of the Year pick," the company states.
Gelato from Mr. Sherbinski of Sherbinskis took the title for 2018. Seed Junky Genetics has won three times, with Wedding Cake for 2019, Jealousy for 2022 and Permanent Marker for 2023. Super Boof, from Blockhead and grown in Michigan by Mobilejay, won for 2024.
Hash Burger took the 2025 title, announced March 4, 2026. Respect and Mrs. Respect of California Seed Bank bred it from Double Burger and Han Solo Hash Plant. Leafly counted about 9,000 monthly page views for the strain and rising purchase interest through 2025, with growers including Grow Sciences, Belushi's Farm, Raw Garden and Legacy Grown.