KIND Financial is an American

start-up A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend ...

focused on providing financial technology services for the cannabis industry. KIND would fail to launch, with CEO and founder David Dinenberg departing the company on May 4, 2023.

History

In 2013, David Dinenberg founded Kind Banking to be the "Wells Fargo of the marijuana banking industry" before changing the name of the company to Kind Financial in late 2014. Dinenberg also serves as CEO of KIND, which has its headquarters in Los Angeles, California. KIND's technology platform seeks to provide tools focused on cannabis tracking and compliance for cultivators, dispensaries, and regulatory agencies in the cannabis industry. These tools are said to manage the entire cannabis business life-cycle and keep transactions safe, secure and compliant with rules, regulations, laws and guidelines with the federal guidelines set forth by

FinCEN The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is a bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury that collects and analyzes information about financial transactions to combat domestic and international money laundering, terrori ...

. KIND's seed-to-sale tracking and compliance platform, Agrisoft Seed to Sale, integrates with KIND's cash-management and order-taking kiosk as well as KIND Pay. Together, the KIND platform should provide a way to close the loop between marijuana-related businesses and financial institutions. KIND quickly grew a prestigious investor portfolio, mostly from Dinenberg's native

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, consisting of venture capitalist

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, singer-songwriter

John Legend John Roger Stephens (born December 28, 1978), known professionally as John Legend, is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He began his musical career working behind the scenes for other artists, playing piano on Lauryn Hill's " Every ...

, film producer Mike Jackson,

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Brian Westbrook Brian Collins Westbrook (born September 2, 1979) is an American former professional football player who was a running back for nine seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the third round of ...

, the heiress of

Ed Snider Edward Malcolm Snider (January 6, 1933 – April 11, 2016) was an American business executive. He was the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, a Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment company that owns the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hock ...

's, the original owner of the

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, fortune Lindy Snider, tennis player

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, 76ers manager Billy King, ''

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'' executive Greg Liss, and model and actress Brooklyn Decker.

Microsoft partnership

On June 17, 2016, Microsoft announced its partnership with KIND. Namely that KIND was going to seek government clients in states where marijuana sales were legal. Despite cash support from a Texan bank, Oklahoman investment fund, and several cannabis companies, KIND stalled namely due to the extra costs required to overcome federal bureaucracy. KIND stopped updating its investors on its financial statements and tax records, and on May 4, 2023, founder and CEO David Dinenberg left the company. Dinenberg blamed the failure of KIND to launch due to the lack of word of mouth advertising from its investors, his own legal troubles and $700,000 in court ordered restitution, and the 2008

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

. KIND's investors retorted that Dinenberg failed to disclose his legal troubles and was mismanaging company funds.

Relaunch attempt

Despite the departure of Dinenberg the company's investors attempted to re-launch as an app where users can purchase cannabis products. This effort to relaunch is being headed by Snider and Liss, who announced that they were actively looking for a new CEO as of September 28, 2023. Since Dinenberg's departure, KIND's website has been "down for maintenance" with the text "Don't be sad that it's gone, be happy that it happened" displayed across their homepage.

References

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36545858 {{reflist American companies established in 2013 Companies based in Los Angeles