SaaS Veteran Brad Cross Joins Sweed to Scale Cannabis Retail Tech

NEW YORK, NY – April 08, 2026 – Sweed, a technology firm providing a comprehensive operating system for cannabis dispensaries, has announced the strategic appointment of Brad Cross as its new Chief Revenue Officer. The move signals an aggressive push to accelerate growth, bringing a seasoned SaaS leader into a cannabis tech market projected to exceed $59 billion by 2033.

Cross will helm Sweed’s entire commercial strategy, overseeing marketing, sales, customer success, and revenue operations. The appointment underscores the company's commitment to its all-in-one platform, which aims to unify the complex web of dispensary operations—from point-of-sale and payments to marketing and inventory—into a single, natively integrated system.

A Proven Leader for a Market at an Inflection Point

Brad Cross is not new to hyper-growth environments. With over two decades of experience scaling revenue organizations in the tech sector, his resume highlights a deep expertise in go-to-market strategy, particularly within marketing and advertising technology. Before joining Sweed, he served as CRO at fintech platform Upflow. Perhaps most notably, during his tenure as Global VP of Sales at the competitive intelligence firm Adthena, he architected a sales organization that spanned three continents and drove an astounding 12x revenue growth in just 3.5 years.

Cross views the burgeoning U.S. cannabis market as being at a critical juncture, one he finds familiar.

"Coming to Sweed felt like getting back to what I love most — the intersection of customer data, product differentiation, and a market that's genuinely hungry for better solutions," said Brad Cross. "Cannabis is at an inflection point that I've seen before, most notably during the deregulation of online gambling, in which there is rapid growth and serious capital flowing in, but the industry is still maturing, and retailers need to quickly develop the digital infrastructure to keep pace and stand out from the crowd."

This parallel is particularly apt. The cannabis technology market is experiencing explosive growth, with some analysts projecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 27% in the coming years. This expansion is fueled by ongoing legalization and a rising consumer demand for more sophisticated retail experiences. However, this growth is constrained by a patchwork of stringent state-by-state regulations, creating significant operational hurdles for retailers.

The All-in-One Advantage in a Fragmented Market

The core challenge for many dispensary operators is managing a disjointed collection of software tools. A typical dispensary might use one system for its point-of-sale, another for eCommerce, a third for its loyalty program, and yet another for compliance reporting. This fragmentation creates operational bottlenecks, data silos, and a disconnected customer experience.

Sweed aims to solve this by providing a single, cohesive platform. "What sets Sweed apart is that it's a true Dispensary Operating System with POS & Integrated payments, and marketing, loyalty, inventory, eCommerce, and analytics all built natively into one platform," Cross noted. "That point of difference gives us a bona fide position as category leaders, and that's exactly the opportunity challenge I came here to take advantage of for Sweed."

This integrated approach promises significant efficiencies. By unifying data, dispensaries can gain a holistic view of their business, enabling smarter inventory decisions and more effective marketing campaigns. It also simplifies the complex task of compliance, where seed-to-sale tracking and purchase limit enforcement are paramount. In a market with competitors like Dutchie, Flowhub, and Treez, Sweed is betting that its natively built, all-in-one architecture provides a more robust and scalable solution than systems that rely on a web of third-party integrations.

This strategy directly addresses a major pain point for retailers looking to expand. A unified tech stack is inherently easier to scale across multiple locations, ensuring consistency in operations, customer data management, and brand experience—a crucial advantage for multi-state operators (MSOs).

Weeding Out Inefficiency with Artificial Intelligence

Beyond simple integration, Sweed is heavily investing in artificial intelligence to give its clients a competitive edge. The company is rolling out a suite of AI-powered tools designed to automate tasks, personalize customer engagement, and drive revenue with less manual effort. These are not standalone features but are woven into the fabric of the platform, leveraging its unified data layer for maximum impact.

Practical applications include an AI Segment Builder that allows marketers to create highly targeted customer groups using natural language prompts, enabling personalized email and SMS campaigns that feature products a customer is most likely to buy. At the point of sale, the system delivers smart recommendations to budtenders, analyzing a customer's purchase history and preferences to suggest relevant upsells and cross-sells, thereby increasing the average order value.

Sweed recently launched an AI-powered customer-facing display that turns the checkout counter into an interactive experience. Shoppers can browse and build their own orders while the system provides personalized promotional intelligence in real-time. This technology not only enhances the customer experience but also optimizes sales opportunities without adding to the budtender's workload. This focus on AI-driven automation for upselling, customer engagement, and inventory optimization is a key part of the company's forward-looking strategy.

A Strategic Play for Market Leadership

The hiring of Brad Cross is a clear signal of Sweed's ambitions. The company's leadership believes they have a superior product and are now bringing in the commercial expertise to capture a dominant market share.

"Brad is exactly the kind of leader we needed at this stage of Sweed's growth," said Rocco Del Priore, Co-Founder of Sweed. "We've built what we genuinely believe is the best product in cannabis retail technology, and now we have the revenue leader to bring that story to market at scale. Brad's background in customer acquisition, data-driven GTM strategy, and building high-performance teams across multiple industries makes him uniquely qualified to lead our commercial organization."

Del Priore also noted that Cross's arrival allows the product team to remain "laser-focused on innovation," including the continued rollout of AI enhancements. By combining a technologically advanced, all-in-one platform with a proven leader in revenue growth, Sweed is making a formidable play to become the definitive operating system for the modern cannabis retailer. The move positions the company to capitalize on an industry rapidly maturing from a fragmented, nascent market into a sophisticated, data-driven retail sector.