At its state of the art medical and recreational cultivation facilities and in a recently expanded extraction laboratory, the Malones and their team are hard at work creating Colorado’s most distinctive premium concentrates.
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Green Dot Labs produces pure, whole plant-derived cannabis extracts of the highest quality. With Colorado’s largest library of cannabis genetics, carefully developed cultivation and extraction methodologies that bring out the best of the cannabis plant, and a relentless focus on producing pure, distinctive concentrates, Green Dot Labs represents a total commitment to excellence and innovation in the cannabis industry.

Alana Malone is the co-founder and CEO of Green Dot Labs. She founded the company in 2014 with her husband, David Malone. As CEO, Alana oversees daily operations including sales, marketing, finance, and HR. “This is a family-founded and operated company,” explains Alana. “With Dave’s talent and passion for cultivating and breeding cannabis, my business and finance background, and the support of my parents, we were able to build what is now one of the country’s leading cultivation and extraction brands.”

Green Dot Labs has operated several cultivation and extraction licenses in Boulder, Colorado since its founding, when the company teamed up with professional engineers and city and state lawmakers to develop the safety standards for indoor hydrocarbon extraction. It has since continued its commitment to health and safety through facility and operational design, compliance with local and state laws and federal guidelines, and business and manufacturing best practices. Though Green Dot Labs is required to produce its extracts under strict guidelines, the company approaches every day as a new opportunity to make the cleanest, purest, most flavorful concentrates possible.

That shared mission – and mutual trust between leadership and staff – strengthens the entire company. Passionate, talented people fill every position. A tangible atmosphere of energy and enthusiasm drives excellence in every department, from accounting and compliance to genetic development and cultivation. In an industry known for high turnover, Green Dot Labs’ commitment to its employees inspires loyalty and motivates performance.

“Early on, we established a culture that allows us to give upfront to our staff and model core values of generosity and quality of service. The result is a strong team relationship based on trust and accountability,” says Alana.

A strategic partnership with leading cannabis investment firm Tuatara Capital, announced in August, has been a major catalyst for the company’s remarkable growth in 2017. With Tuatara’s funding, expertise, and network of relationships, Green Dot Labs is expanding production and pursuing new strategic opportunities that will allow it to meet demand and strengthen its leadership in the cannabis industry’s fastest-growing product category.

The company began the year with 15 employees and will more than double their headcount by the end of 2017. Green Dot Labs’ physical footprint is growing too. A new recreational cultivation site is five times the size of the original, with technology that automates its proven cultivation techniques. State-of-the-art upgrades in the extraction lab make it possible to increase production without compromising quality.

The new facilities and expanded production capabilities have made it possible for Green Dot Labs to bring Black Label Nectar, its signature line of carefully crafted artisan extracts, to Colorado’s adult-use consumers for the first time. Coveted by medical cannabis connoisseurs since it first hit shelves in 2014, Black Label Nectar is still the company’s most beloved, sought after product line.

Black Label Nectar is the ultimate expression of Green Dot Labs’ “quality in, quality out” ethos. Every step of production is managed in-house, starting with genetic development. The company sources and breeds rare and exclusive cannabis varietals that are ideal for concentrate production.

Green Dot Labs is widely known and respected for its intensive focus on genetic sourcing and development. “We are working with over 200 different varietals in our facilities at any given time, which is a tremendous amount of variety,” says Alana. “A lot of those genetics have been developed in-house as part of our breeding program, and many of the varietals can’t be found anywhere else.”

The company’s expansive, evolving genetic library is the largest collection of any licensed operator in Colorado. This singular collection makes it possible to offer patients and customers an endless array of exciting, one of a kind Black Label Nectar varietals. Green Dot Labs continues to expand its library as it pursues the purest, most memorable possible expression of cannabis.

Green Dot Labs’ obsession with cannabis continues in the cultivation facility, where co-founder David Malone and his team have developed growing techniques that optimize the plants’ essential oils. At harvest, the whole plant is fresh frozen to preserve the cannabinoids and terpenes concentrated within the resin of the flowering cannabis plant.

In the lab, the extraction team works with meticulous care to create the purest, cleanest extracts available, using methods designed to preserve the plants’ delicate flavor profiles. The frozen plant material’s essential oil is extracted in a closed loop extraction system using ultra-refined light hydrocarbon gas. The product is then refined according to desired consistency, and tested for purity and potency before being packaged for sale.

After intensive breeding, expert cultivation, and exacting extraction and purification processes that preserve the plant’s rich resin while eradicating impurities, the finished product is the raw essential oil of the cannabis plant, rich with flavor and medicinal value. The oil contains high levels of cannabinoid compounds like THC and CBD, as well as terpenes, the aromatic compounds that give each varietal its own distinctive flavor and smell. These compounds offer therapeutic benefits and a memorable sensory experience when they are vaporized.

Green Dot Labs also produces a second line of premium medical and recreational wholesale extracts called Silver Label Live Resin. Silver Label is a curated line featuring mainstream cannabis varietals that are familiar to many patients and consumers.

To supply cannabis for the Silver Label Live Resin line, Green Dot Labs works with leading licensed Colorado growers who share the company’s high standards and commitment to quality. The team works to identify potential cultivation sources through heavy vetting, including top-to-bottom facility and procedural inspections of the cultivation partner. The relationship with these cultivators is one of meaningful collaboration. Green Dot Labs offers resources for facility standards, procedures, and training on harvesting and handling the material supplied. Only rigorously vetted material reaches the company’s lab to produce Silver Label Live Resin.

Green Dot Labs is committed to leading the regulated cannabis industry long-term. The team’s focus, specialization, patience, and follow-through are key to the success of Colorado’s longest-running concentrate brand. “Patience is needed to make the hard decisions, in order to do what’s right again and again. It can be exhausting and wear you down, but every day we come fully prepared to make the right decision at every step to deliver a truly exceptional product that meets our founding standards,” says Alana.

Two of the biggest challenges Green Dot Labs and other state-regulated cannabis companies face in the industry are banking and taxes. Cannabis wholesalers are subject to the strict Internal Revenue Code 280E, which specifically denies businesses that sell a federally controlled substance a deduction or credit for any expense. The plant’s federally illegal, Schedule I status makes legitimate providers of banking and financial services wary of federal action including racketeering charges. As a result, legitimate cannabis businesses struggle to access banking and other essential financial services.

Being a reputable and well-established business, Green Dot Labs has been fortunate to be able to access limited banking services. However, Alana says, “Banking in cannabis still falls short of offering what we need.” The banks servicing licensed cannabis businesses in the state have long waiting lists, sky-high fees, and their programs require significant compliance reporting. Fortunately, Green Dot Labs’ history of standards, compliance, and record keeping allowed the company to join a beta program early on. “Our bankers know who we are and what we do, and it is a highly regulated situation. We receive quarterly operations audits on their behalf and have to prepare detailed support documentation with every deposit,” explains Alana.

Another challenge for the company is consumer education. The company is battling deep misconceptions about the safety and potency of concentrates as well as the benefits of solvent-based extraction methods. As a wholesaler to dispensaries, there is no direct point of contact with the person buying the product, making it difficult to ensure that their experience is the best it can be. The team gets creative with marketing, to ensure that customers, budtenders, and the general public have a better understanding of the unique experience that Green Dot Labs offers.

Despite these obstacles, the future for Green Dot Labs is bright, and its team anticipates continued growth. “In the future, I see us continuing to push the envelope in genetics, indoor cultivation, and manufacturing and also continuing to bring exciting, premium products to the medical and adult-use markets in Colorado by growing our brand,” says Alana.

For over four years, Green Dot Labs has consistently delivered a beautifully presented, high-quality product that is clean, safe, pure, potent, flavorful, and entirely unique. Exacting standards and relentless exploration are embedded in the company’s DNA; the result is a premium concentrate that stands apart from the competition. The cannabis market is evolving, and Green Dot Labs is growing with it, but Green Dot Labs will continue its pursuit of the purest expression of cannabis, without compromise.