Colorado-based hiring platform Vangst is buying GreenForce, a temporary staffing agency for the cannabis industry operating in Arizona and Oregon.
GreenForce founder and CEO Ryan Rosenfeld will join Vangst as chief business officer to focus on the company’s regional and national expansion.
The half-cash, half-stock deal brings Vangst’s customer count to more than 1,800.
The company, which has more than 150,000 workers on its platform, assists 90% of the top U.S. cannabis operators in hiring fully credentialed employees for temporary and full-time positions.
“We want to be the category killer,” Vangst founder and CEO Karson Humiston told MJBizDaily, adding that the GreenForce acquisition “is an opportunity to grow in regions we didn’t focus on.”
The acquisition comes at a time when the cannabis industry is starting to see job growth after several years of decline.
The regulated cannabis industry created nearly 23,000 jobs in 2023 as national sales levels returned to double-digit growth, according to the 2024 Vangst Jobs Report.
“We’re seeing it really pick up in 2024, and we have an opportunity to consolidate some of our best competitors,” said Humiston, adding that she’s in negotiations with another acquisition target.
GreenForce is the second acquisition this year for Vangst, which purchased CannabizTemp in April in a half-cash, half-stock deal.
After meeting earlier this year, Vangst’s Humiston and GreenForce’s Rosenfeld discovered they shared similar visions for their businesses.
“The more time we spent together, the more opportunities we saw for our customers and the workers we’re placing,” Humiston said.
“Our goal is to fill every job in cannabis.”
Founded in 2016, GreenForce has more than 100 clients in the two states where it operates.
“I am exceptionally proud of the business we built at GreenForce and couldn’t be more excited for our next chapter with Vangst,” Rosenfeld said in a news release.
“This transaction will give us the opportunity to expand more aggressively than ever before, provide an even more superior experience to our customers and workforce and, most importantly, continue to uplift the cannabis industry.”
