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CompanyProfile

Support for a new frontier

t's no secret. Electronic payment offerings for the
cannabis industry leave plenty to be desired. The
problem was even more prominent in 2013, when
I West Palm Beach-based Paybotic LLC jumped in to
help. "I was in school and involved with an online order-
ing POS system for delivery businesses," Max Miller,
Paybotic's founder and president, recalled. "A roommate
went into the dispensary side of the business and asked
me to do the processing."

According to Miller, this was what led his business into
cannabis. "We started serving one dispensary, and anoth- ISO/MLS contact:
er wanted the same service; then we went on to service Mahlon James
different parts of the industry in a lot of capacities," he re-
called. Paybotic now serves everything from testing labs, Director of Sales
to software-as-a-service providers, to subscription ser- 561-290-0205
vices, and even larger cannabidiol (CBD) makers. "These
businesses need solutions," he said. "If they can't transact, PartnerSupport@paybotic.com
they're not in business."

Today, with more than 500 cannabis businesses in the
company's portfolio and healthy year-over-year growth,
Miller said he's ready to invest even more into ecommerce
and technology in the coming months and years. Miller feels this is one main difference Paybotic has going
for it, along with a culture of service, transparency and
The foundation reliability. "We're always there for our customers," he said.
According to a company statement, Paybotic provides "In the high-risk industry, nothing is forever, and some
custom payment solutions to cannabis merchants and is businesses can lose their bank or insurance coverage, so
versed in finding programs that suit a merchant's needs we need to be able to support them at all phases."
quickly and efficiently, while also constantly pushing for
rigorous developments of service suites to accommodate Miller also noted there are many independent brokerage
their growing needs. Miller noted that Paybotic offers houses that try to service the industry yet lack in delivery
many types of products to businesses in the CBD vertical tactics. "If you call us, we answer the phone," he said. "We
since there's no one-size-fits-all formula. "There's in-store, have a full-time, dedicated team that provides white-
online, on-the-go, over-the-phone and more, and we have glove service." He added that transparency is important
solutions for all of it," he said. to enable cannabis businesses ethically. "A lot of business
ethics will make or break this industry, because it's easy to
Miller went on to describe Paybotic's client intake pro- screw people when they're desperate for service," he said.
cess. "We start the process with our questionnaire, so we "We need to be looked at as enablers, not price gougers."
can advise the merchant on how we can provide the most Room for growth
bandwidth for their business to succeed," he said. "For ex-
ample, if you're a retail store, we want you to give the ex- Referencing the reluctance in the payments industry
perience of going into the store and using a card like any to embrace the cannabis vertical, Miller indicated he
other business." According to Miller, the product set also understands why processing rates come at a premium.
includes out-of-box solutions like "crypto acceptance" and "Cannabis is never going to be a low-risk business, but as
"cashless ATM," which he described as a "core solution at the industry opens up and laws progress positively, we'll
Paybotic." see changes," he said.
The extra mile Miller believes the cannabis industry, despite its challenges,

Paybotic also stated that the company's payment profes- will continue to grow. "The forward momentum can't be
sionals "educate our merchants through full transparency stopped," he stated. And Paybotic will be poised to help
on payment processing, to ensure transaction processing cannabis merchants along the way. "We'd love to get in
is compliant and secured within the regulatory scope of touch with them all now," Miller said. "There's just going
the cannabis and payment industry." to be more business going forward."

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