Step 1: Build software for pot labs. Step 2: Find out who has the strongest herb. Step 3: Create a marijuana marketplace connecting dispensaries with the best growers.

That’s the plan that scored $3 million in seed funding led by Slow Ventures for Confident Cannabis. Right now it’s on Step 2, having established the largest real-time database of cannabis in the world just nine months after launching.

Built by four Stanford grads, the Y Combinator and StartX company wants to corner a critical data stream in the fast-growing ganja business. For now, it’s the CarFax of weed.  If it succeeds, Confident Cannabis could become the sticky-icky stock exchange, where growers and sellers connect.

Odava, a Portland, Oregon based startup that provides software tools for the cannabis industry, has raised $170,000, according to a recent SEC filing. Odava is seeking an additional $130,000 as part of this seed round.

Odava’s enterprise platform includes a point-of-sale system and other tools to help marijuana dispensaries track their business and comply with local laws. The company was approved as a certified Cannabis Tracking System by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission on Monday. The state requires recreational cannabis retailers to record their activity and software, like Odava’s, enables them to do so.

Marijuana and fitness can be mentioned together, says 1998 Olympic gold medal snowboarder.

In college, Jim McAlpine used marijuana to combat his attention deficit disorder when term papers had to be finished. Now, as a 46-year-old married father and businessman near San Francisco, he uses twice daily: “My mind is one of those minds that’s just always moving, and I need to slow it down.”

Marijuana is his answer, and it is also becoming his business. McAlpine, who has founded a marijuana-themed travelling sports carnival called the 420 Games, is planning to open a pot friendly fitness centre in Northern California with help from former Toronto Argonauts running back Ricky Williams. 

Last year Jake Heimark launched Plus Gum, a Palo Alto-based company with 10 employees that makes cannabis-infused chewing gum. The gum costs $15 for a pack of six pieces, each containing 25 milligrams of THC and just five calories. After working at Facebook FB -2.28% and payment platform company Gumroad, he was searching for a startup opportunity in a fast-growing field.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Nick Kriaris, owner of Encanto Green Cross medical-marijuana dispensary in Phoenix, and his brother, Chris, tried to open an account at Bank of America for their nonprofit business with $420 in cash.

The attempt at the bank branch at 3030 North Central Avenue was, to some extent, a stunt, from the pot-culture-inspired amount of the initial deposit to the dispensary employee videotaping his bosses. They knew the odds of success were minimal, if not zero.

But if the bank agreed to take the medical-marijuana retail shop's money, it would have been something of a minor historical moment. Although dozens of dispensaries are authorized to operate in the state, no bank will deal openly with them -- yet.

Marijuana Central has seen incredible growth in the past six months and now receives over 300,000 unique visitors per month. Company founder Korban Stone says, “We have not done any marketing yet, but we continue to see the number of visitors rise.” He plans to begin advertising and marketing the site and last month the website began to monetize by accepting listings from marijuana related companies. “We’ll be investing our revenues into driving more traffic to the site. I don’t see this growth trend ending any time soon as this is just the beginning of this industry and we’re positioned to grow with it.”

Science will revolutionize cannabis industry; Create consistent higher potency products.

A big problem in the cannabis industry is inconsistency in products--even the same cannabis strain can vary from plant to plant. Today Ebbu, LLC, announces it is the first cannabis company in the world with a fully operational production scale purification process (patent pending) using chromatography. Chromatography is a process that allows Ebbu to separate and purify individual compounds from the cannabis plant. Ebbu uses a customized, one-of-a-kind NovaSep SuperSEP 1000 that can separate at least 18 compounds at the same time.

Colorado's legal cannabis sales continue to smash records, mainly because of the increased interest in concentrates and edibles. Dispensary sales in April surged by 58 percent over the same period previous year, according to Boulder-based BDS Analytics.

What's more, the monthly sales of $117-million beat last December's record $101-million in sales.

Greenhouses are becoming the most popular way to cultivate cannabis. They harness the power of the sun, provide a warm climate, and protect gardens from harsh environmental conditions. Past the basics, a greenhouse allows for year-round cultivation, climate control, and controlled exposure to sunlight. What’s more, they’re cheaper than growing indoors and produce a more consistent product than outdoors.

How Does a Greenhouse Work?

Colorado leads the nation in the prevalence of monthly marijuana use by adults 18 and older, according to data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). When it comes to annual adult marijuana use, marijuana is the most popular in our nation’s capital, Washington D.C.