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US: Betting on making it in the NY cannabis market

Inspired by a trip to Europe, Jun Lee and his friend, Vince Ning, wanted to start a coffee shop with a cannabis twist in their home state of California, which had recently legalized the drug for adult use.

"Turned out, we didn't have enough money for that," Lee recalls. "But we learned a lot about the industry researching the possibility of it."

Instead, the two friends shifted their focus to the logistics business, discovering a need for cannabis growers and retailers to have reliable, professional supplier service. In 2018, they founded Nabis, a cannabis wholesale purchasing platform and distributor, and last year the company expanded its operations to Nevada.

Now, Lee and Ning are betting that New York—which legalized adult-use cannabis in March 2021—is fertile ground for future growth. Nabis has opened a 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Rochester along with a smaller one in the Bronx, aiming to serve a statewide market that topped $1 billion in retail sales last year. The fast-rising sales have come even though the launch of legalized cannabis in New York has been rocky. Slower-than-expected licensing approvals, legal battles and disruption in leadership at the newly created regulatory agency have bedeviled the nascent industry.

Read more at The Rochester Beacon