Bauer agrees to full-time role with Abaca

Cannabis financial technology firm Abaca announced Thursday (March 26) that co-founder Brian Bauer is transitioning to a full-time role with Abaca as the chief strategy and revenue officer. Bauer joins Abaca from The Venture Center where he served as managing director of fintech accelerator programs.

“Over the last 24 months, Abaca has been growing steadily along with the entire cannabis industry,” said Abaca CEO Dan Roda. “Brian’s experience and depth of resources in fintech and innovation will be essential in continuing this growth and in enabling the provision of modern financial services across this vertical.”

Abaca enables financial services such as banking, lending and electronic payment processing for the U.S. cannabis industry. It was founded in 2017 by Roda, Greg Ellis, John Foley and Brian Bauer. In his new role with the company, Bauer will drive Abaca’s growth strategy and manage business development and strategic partnerships. Bauer will also oversee the company’s sales and lending teams.

“I am glad to be able to shift my focus to furthering Abaca’s mission of providing our clients with the very best financial services available,” said Bauer. “There is a tremendous opportunity in this industry that is still very underserved. I look forward to working with our growing team to continue the expansion of our offerings and to maximize our market opportunity.”

In his most recent role at The Venture Center, Bauer oversaw its globally recognized, industry- and corporate-backed fintech accelerator programs that help early stage banking technology companies go-to-market.