Company Name: ProVerde Laboratories, Inc.
Year Founded: January 2013
Ownership Structure: C-Corporation incorporated in Massachusetts
Partners/Management Team: Dorian A. Des Lauriers CEO, Christopher Hudalla, Chief Scientific Officer
Headquarters: Milford, MA
Industry Segment/Category: Lab Testing and Research Services
Current Markets/States Served: MA, ME, RI (labs located in each state)
Current Number of employees: 6 (doubling this year)
Market Strategy/Goal: To be THE lab testing service of choice in the East, beginning with legal medical marijuana states and eventually moving outward from there with superior equipment, and breadth of ISO certifications. The plan is to build business value through equipping labs with state-of-the-art equipment and ISO 17025:2005 Accreditation standards. They are currently accredited to run 44 different tests for the cannabis industry.
2014 Current Revenues: NA Private Company
Expansion Plans: Hope to add clients in IL, DE, DC, NJ, NY, MD this year as well as in VT, NH, and PA when they come online, as well as moving further into serving the CBD and Hemp industries. Eventually plan to expand westward.
Financing strategy: To date, from personal capital and operating cash flow
There are three things that I know about Milford, Massachusetts.
- First, it was the town where a struggling 27-year-old ad sales executive, yours truly, bought his first house.
- Secondly and more recently, it’s the home of what I continue to hear is the manufacturer of the best CO2 extraction equipment and other laboratory instrumentation in the world — the publicly traded Waters Corporation, WAT (NYSE), that has entered into the cannabis space through its subsidiary, Vicam.
- Lastly, it is also the headquarters of ProVerde Laboratories, launched in January 2013 by entrepreneur and CEO Dorian Des Lauriers, a classic New Englander, born and bred, complete with the “park the car” accent, and his partner and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Christopher Hudalla, who is a Waters Corporation alum.
Dorian and Chris started the business with their own funds and a very simple goal: Build a business with something of value to offer, with sound fundamentals, get there with feet planted firmly on the ground, and pursue business opportunities in their own backyard. A little over two years later, they are executing that plan to a T!
Dorian began his career in personnel and training at Kohl’s before branching out on his own, first in the land surveying business and then, after starting a software company that he sold prior to starting (with Chris) ProVerde Labs. Chris is a Ph. D. analytical chemist with 25 years of research experience and a 14 year veteran from Waters Corporation. While with Waters, he worked with companies such as Pfizer to implement the Waters UPC2 technology that ProVerde uses at the core of our services.
Currently, ProVerde Labs has hundreds of clients in Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island, and Dorian tells me they are poised to move into peripheral northeast states like CT, DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, and VT. In addition to investing $2 million into outfitting the lab, including state of the art Waters extraction, testing and purification equipment, they have secured ISO 17025:2005 Accreditation and are accredited to perform up to 44 different tests.
They have established industry leading best practices and recognition as one of top 2014 Emerald Test peer-to-peer testing participants that fared well enough to publish their test results (the other two were SteepHill and Oregon Growers Analytical). For the Cannabis Testing Industry specifically, The Emerald Test® includes two separate Proficiency Testing programs: Potency and Safety. Each program is offered twice annually (Spring and Fall), giving labs the ability to choose a schedule that meets their needs.
Expansion plans include opening labs in new markets to service those states to not only handle marijuana PPR clients, but also, to serve the rapidly growing hemp based CBD testing market. They expect to double or triple their staff in 2015 and are working with state regulators to develop the most comprehensive and complete oversight programs. They now are handling testing for Hemp Meds.
Like most companies CBE has covered, Dorian and Chris have always been involved with their civic and business communities; they understand corporate responsibility and cause marketing. They support their business partners and the communities they serve and will partner with any RMD’s in their compassionate relief requirements with their “Proportionate Share Fare” program with reduced testing fees for compassionate care products.
The year 2015 is an important year for ProVerde Labs. They have invested heavily in creating a value proposition that is highly competitive, and, they would argue, it is second to none in the lab testing segment. Now, as these two competent and competitive founders would tell you in their Boston accents, the proof is in the pudding!
