LivWell Buys All Five Mindful Dispensaries in Colorado

Marijuana's game of Hungry Hungry Hippos continues: LivWell Enlightened Health just announced an agreement to purchase Mindful, a dispensary chain with five stores in Colorado.

That makes 22 dispensaries in the state under LivWell ownership, with both Mindful locations in Aurora as well as stores in Berthoud, Colorado Springs and Denver all transitioning to the LivWell brand over the next few months. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This is the second major marijuana business acquisition in the past several months for LivWell, according to the company, which purchased edibles manufacturer Sweet Grass Kitchen earlier this year.

Michael Lord, senior vice president of business development, notes in a statement that "2020 continues to be a year of incredible and strategic growth for LivWell. Bringing MiNDFUL into the LivWell fold provides an organic and seamless growth opportunity for the LivWell brand."

Mindful co-founder and CEO Kevin Daly will stay with the company, according to LivWell.

"Our team has always admired LivWell's business model, operational discipline and similar corporate culture," Daly says. "And we are now honored to be part of LivWell."

Founded in 2010, Mindful is just the most recent of the early Colorado dispensary groups to merge with a larger chain after the state opened the marijuana industry to publicly traded companies and outside investors. Unlike most of the major dispensary buyers in the last year, however, LivWell remains a privately held company.

LivWell quickly became one of the state's largest retail chains after recreational marijuana sales began in 2014, but that expansion was largely based on opening new stores. Now that licenses for new locations are drying up around Colorado, LivWell has found other ways to grow and evolve, purchasing Fort Collins dispensary Infinite Wellness Center in early 2019, with anther new store in Commerce City and plans to move a northeast Denver dispensary to a Tower Road location near Denver International Airport in early 2020. The company acquired a former B-good dispensary in Federal Heights last year, as well.