Strainprint Technologies Ltd President on Cannabis At Work Partnership

Strainprint Technologies Ltd President and CTO Dave Berg shares details of the company’s history and provides an overview of the company’s cannabis tracking app. Berg describes the evolution of Strainprint from a mobile tracking app to a suite of services, which includes data analytics. Berg is excited about Strainprint’s recent partnership with Cannabis At Work to provide recruitment, online training, and HR services to the cannabis industry through Strainprint Community’s portal and Cannabis At Work’s platform. Berg reveals that Strainprint is invested in ensuring the responsible use of cannabis in the workplace. Berg believes that the company’s app gives individuals the tools they need to stop using pharmaceuticals with harmful side effects.

Transcript:

Narrator: Strainprint Technologies, Ltd. is a Toronto-based cannabis data and analytics company providing enterprise-grade analytics and consumer solutions for the medical cannabis industry.

The company manages the gathering and analysis of real-time cannabis consumption data and ranks specific strain efficacy against conditions and related symptoms.

It also works with commercial producers and clinics to provide advanced intelligence and optimize operations and treatment recommendations.

Strainprint can be embedded or integrated with most electronic medical records, point of sale, and seed to sale software systems. The Strainprint app is free to patients and can be downloaded from both the iOS app store and Google Play Store.

Howard Glassman:   All right, what a great opportunity to talk to someone that I’ve actually spoken to before. He is the CTO and President of Strainprint Technologies: please say hello to Dave Berg. Dave, how are you, Sir?

Dave Berg:    Hey, Howard, how you doing?

Howard Glassman:   What a pleasure.

Dave Berg:    It’s great to see you.

Howard Glassman:   What a mitzvah!

Dave Berg:    Yes, a mitzvah. We get to come together.

Howard Glassman:   That’s what we say. We get to hang out.

Dave Berg:    It’s special!

Howard Glassman:   It is special.

Dave Berg:    It’s bashert, as we were saying.

Howard Glassman:   Well, we’re – Dave and I have some dealings with one another in another life. Dave, his company, full disclosure, I know you don’t like to talk about that here on the show, but full disclosure, Dave and Strainprint are part of the Humble & Fred show. They are one of our sponsors, and we’ve had a relationship – and it’s interesting, Dave, because it started, the very first time I had somebody from Strainprint on, was just as a guest. And we were lucky enough that you guys decided our show might be something worth investing in, and now here we are talking about investment and the industry in general. But you’ve been at this for a long time. Maybe just explain a little bit about what Strainprint does, and where you guys are as a company.

Dave Berg:    Sure. Well, Strainprint started out as a medical journaling application that was on Android and iOS for patients that were looking to figure out what cannabis products worked best for their different medical situations. So we developed an app; we tracked 350 different medical conditions, 70 symptoms, and we tracked the way people interact relative to their medical condition and their symptoms, and products that are available in the legal supply chain.

So we’re looking at the way people interact with products, and then, you know, that can be communicated to a physician, a supplier or anyone else in the supply chain who wants to better understand the way patients are using cannabis within the human condition.

Howard Glassman:   And to be clear, Strainprint’s been around obviously prior to legalization, where there was a need for patients to avail themselves of their own, you know, sort of do a little due diligence on their own. Because there was a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, where GPs in Ontario, they wouldn’t, they weren’t handing out medical marijuana prescriptions. So a lot of patients were trying to find information from apps like Strainprint.

Dave Berg:    Yeah, well, that’s exactly where the app started from. So we, Strainprint as a company of patients for patients. So we originally started out looking for ways to better understand how to manage our own conditions. You know, I use it to treat arthritis in my knees; I also have a young son that has Crohn’s Disease, so I’m always on a look for new ways to treat his condition.

Howard Glassman:   Right.

Dave Berg:    Because the existing methods are quite invasive.

Howard Glassman:   Yes.

Dave Berg:    So it was out of necessity that we kind of stumbled onto cannabis and realized there wasn’t a lot of knowledge out there about the way it can be prescribed, and at that time, I came together with my partners: Andrew Muroff, who you’ve had discussions with before…

Howard Glassman:   Yeah, Andrew’s been on the show.

Dave Berg:    Stephanie Karasick and Evan Karasick, and we formed the company with the goal of decoding what works for everyone, and that’s kind of where we started. And it’s been about three years now, and we have actually grown Strainprint from a mobile app into a full data and analytics organization that has the largest data set on medicinal use in the world.

Howard Glassman:   Well, I want to talk a little bit about, because Andrew was on the show, and we did do a little background on, you know, what Strainprint is, what it stands for, why it’s important. You were talking about Crohn’s and arthritis. You know, that’s one of the things, and I talked a little bit about this yesterday, you know, when legalization was floated, a lot of people were thinking oh, giggle, giggle, now we can get high. I talked about this yesterday, and we’ve spoken about it. But the actual point of legalization is for companies like Strainprint and other companies to make the experience of medicating for medicinal purposes – and we’re going to talk about opioids in a second – more available for the average person.

Dave Berg:    Yeah, well, I mean, what cannabis does is, it affects everyone differently based on their situation. So we want people to be mindful of the way they medicate. There’s a lot of concern about impairment and the impact on someone’s performance, and there’s a stigma around that. So we want to be able to teach people how to be responsible in their choices so that they’re functional.

Howard Glassman:   And the thing is, Dave, not every cannabis product is about getting high.

Dave Berg:    That’s correct.

Howard Glassman:   It’s about medicating with non-psychotropic CBD. I want to talk about this: last month you guys announced a partnership with Cannabis At Work, the leading source for cannabis jobs in Canada, delivering recruitment services, online training and HR consulting services to the cannabis industry. That’s a whole other discussion, too, that your company, other companies, a lot of the companies we talk about here on Midas Letter that are trading, there’s so many jobs in this sector, now. There’s so many opportunities that have opened up. So what’s the deal with you and CAW?

Dave Berg:    Well, it’s a couple of things. I think first of all, the thing that I love about this industry is that everything that’s old is new again.

Howard Glassman:   Right.

Dave Berg:    And you’re getting to see people from other industries with core expertise that were used in other ways, lemming themselves now in the cannabis. So it poses a unique challenge for people that are entering the workforce; they have a new lexicon they need to learn, they have new technologies that they have to interface with, and the ramp is quite high. And then there’s also, how do you use this in the workplace? So, policies need to be created, awareness needs to be generated, and working with Cannabis At Work helps us to be part of that dialogue to enforce responsible use.

Howard Glassman:   I was just looking at a video that you guys sent out, it’s Dr. Blake Pearson, and the video – and we’re going to put it up – it won’t be on the Midas Letter, but I’ll let you guys know where you can see it. The title of the video is Combatting the Opioid Crisis and Reducing Polypharmacy With Medical Cannabis. Explain all that to me.

Dave Berg:    So one of the big hopes for cannabis is that it can be used as a substitute therapy to traditional molecular drugs. So we have a lot of patients that use the Strainprint app that are using it to get off antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications. We have people that are using it for, you know, diabetic, we have people that are using it for a variety of other inflammatory diseases. This is really giving them the tools that they need so that they can get off those pharmaceutical drugs that perhaps have some bad side effects.

Howard Glassman:   Exactly.

Dave Berg:    We’re not saying it’s a cure-all for everything, but we have noticed that in certain conditions, it is a viable alternative that is much easier.

Howard Glassman:   And if you were on something, if you were on antidepressants or any kind of medication that had long-term unknown side effects, wouldn’t you want to at least try a cannabinoid, you know, cousin, if you will? Something, just to give it a shot.

Dave Berg:    Yeah, and it’s about how, also, can you use cannabis in combination with your other therapies? How can you live a healthier lifestyle by getting off more of those harmful, or more aggressive side effect, drugs? And it’s about overall improvement of quality of life.

Howard Glassman:   You know, it’s funny, because I really don’t – I’m trying to think what the side effect of marijuana for me, is. Okay, once in awhile I have 7-11 chicken. It’s true. Anyway, side effects may include having 7-11 chicken. All joking aside, let’s talk about this: your company, Strainprint, private company.

Dave Berg:    Yeah.

Howard Glassman:   Any plans? Because this is an investment show, and a lot of the companies that we talk about on the show are publicly traded. But some of them started off like Strainprint.

Dave Berg:    Yeah, I mean, we’re a privately-owned company. We’ve been funded through venture funding, and we have plans to really go and dominate the industry in terms of providing demand-side analytics. We have a variety of solutions that power the publicly traded companies that we’re talking about on this show; licensed producers make use of data that’s generated on our platform to better understand their consumers.

Organizations like Health Canada also have stringent regulations over how you can represent your cannabis-derived products; we have experiential data directly from patients, and we’re not under the same restrictions as a producer. So when we look at a product and it’s use, whether it’s from someone like Aurora or Canna Farms or Emblem –

Howard Glassman:   Canopy.

Dave Berg:    Canopy Group, any of those – we’re looking at it in terms of how are patients using it, to what effect are they receiving the best benefit, what are the actual side effects that patients are experiencing while using these products. And when we’re looking at these products, we’re not looking at 10, 20 uses; typically we’ll have thousands and thousands of recorded interactions with these cannabis products from producers.

And we also look at the way people’s interactions change, not only from Girl Scout Cookie from Canna Farms versus Tilray; we’re looking at, how does that Girl Scout Cookie product change from batch to batch, and does that have an impact on the patient experience.

Howard Glassman:   And how does it change from person to person. But back to my question, any plans – was this – I know you, because I love how you deftly took us there.

Dave Berg:    I took us on a curve.

Howard Glassman:   You don’t have to. You don’t have to tell me. If it’s a private company, it’s a private company – none of your business, investment nerds! Quit hassling Dave, he’s my buddy.

Dave Berg:    When the right opportunity knocks, that’s when you’ll see us make a move. In the meantime, we’re enjoying our current trajectory.

Howard Glassman:   Well, listen: you came in here, you did a great job. Thank you.

Dave Berg:    Thank you for having us.

Howard Glassman:   President and CTO – it’s Chief Technology Officer – Strainprint Technologies, Limited. Strainprint.ca is how you can get the app; it’s available on Google on the Play Store, on iOS. Just go get it. And here’s the thing: even if you have just a passing interest in how cannabis works with you, you might be surprised. Remember what Dave mentioned: arthritis. I’ve been – I’m telling you, I’ve got some – it’s been so great for…

Dave Berg:    For golfing, your golfing game.

Howard Glassman:   Anti-inflammatory…I’m not talking about the psychotropic, I’m just talking about taking CBD, and then with something as serious as Crohn’s. I hope it helps.

Dave Berg:    As so do I.

Howard Glassman:   It’s good seeing you, my friend.

Dave Berg:    Good to see you, too.

Howard Glassman:   Always a pleasure. There’s Dave Berg. All right, kids – up next, Ed will be talking to Steve Misener. But first, you may have heard about this – James will be broadcasting live from the LA YouTube studios tonight. Take a look at some of the guest he’ll be talking to.

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Original article: Strainprint Technologies Ltd President on Cannabis At Work Partnership

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