BLAZE
“Can a cannabis-vertical POS own the payments layer that federal banking rules force dispensaries to reinvent?”
Founded2017
HQAnaheim, California, United States
Total raised$9.5M
Latest roundSeries A, 2021
IndustryVertical SaaS / Cannabis Retail
The story
BLAZE is a cannabis-focused vertical SaaS platform providing POS, ecommerce, and payments to dispensaries and delivery services. Because cannabis remains federally illegal in the US, traditional card networks won't service the vertical — so BLAZE embeds ACH (via Aeropay) and Cashless ATM rails as its primary payment offering under the BLAZEPAY brand. The company is layering AI automation on top via BLAZE Labs rather than expanding into traditional embedded finance products (lending, cards, banking).
Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2017
BLAZE Solutions founded as cannabis retail POS/ERP platform· pivot
2019
Closed seed round· banking
2021
Raised $8M Series A to expand cannabis resource planning platform· banking
2023
Earned SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II certifications· pivot
2024
Launched BLAZE Labs AI-powered innovation hub· pivot
2025
BLAZEPAY expanded with ACH scan-to-pay via Aeropay and Cashless ATM· banking
The stack
3 layers disclosed in BLAZE’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
AeropayBLAZEPAY (self-operated)
Money movement
in the full report
Accounting
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
5 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.