The legal weed market is a 'boomin' in 2017, and along with it, a burgeoning tech sector has sprouted up around the fast-growing cannabis economy. From the West Coast and Colorado all the way to Massachusetts in more than half the country (26 states and the District of Columbia) where cannabis has been legalized in some form, there's a dank cornucopia of innovative tech companies and startups reimagining how the weed industry does business and engaging its swelling base of regular consumers.
North American legal marijuana sales totaled $6.7 billion in 2016, and cannabis market research firm New Frontier Data projects the industry will top 255,000 jobs by 2019 and reach $24.5 billion in sales by 2025. In that broader context, cannabis is just another kind of product, surrounded by every kind of ancillary business of which you can think, and wrapped in an ecosystem of apps, services, and software.
