MTech Acquisition Corp., the first Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) to be listed in U.S. that acquires business ancillary to the cannabis sector, has recently joined hands with MJ Freeway LLC, a leading seed-to-sale regulatory compliance technology provider, to form the first compliance technology company in the cannabis space to be traded on Nasdaq, known as Akerna Corp.
The merger was confirmed at a meeting of MTech stockholders on June 17, 2019. Akerna’s shares of warrants and common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on June 18, 2019, under the symbols KERNW and KERN, respectively.
Jessica Billingsley, Co-Founder and CEO of MJ Freeway, would be leading Akerna and becomes the first CEO to bring a regulatory compliance technology company in the cannabis space to Nasdaq. She stated that with cannabis legalization expansion across the globe, they believed it was crucial that consumers, patients, businesses and governments have the tracking and compliance technology they need to make considerate decisions and adhere to applicable regulations.
Scott Sozio, CEO, MTech Acquisition, was reportedly quoted saying that MTech was delighted to close the transaction and looked forward to capitalizing on the significant financial as well as and operational advantages they believed the alliance has created. He further commented that compliant, scalable and comprehensive tech solutions will establish the a rapid growth for the industry while serving as a backbone for sustained success.
Roger McNamee, Senior Advisor for Board of Directors at Akerna, added that Cannabis companies in pursuit of becoming leaders were adopting MJ Platform as it was the only ERP product with the technical foundation to support multi-location and multi-line operations. This deal allows MJ to better support users in managing tremendous growth and complexity as the industry expands from a local to global scale.
For the record, Denver-based Akerna Corp., plans to expand through targeted, strategic acquisitions complementary to its current business and by accelerating its product development efforts.