Dan Muller
Age: 35
Company: Aeropay
Title: Founder and CEO
One of the biggest problems in the cannabis industry is the all-cash nature of the retail business and the crime that comes it. But Dan Muller at Aeropay may have the solution.
Founded in 2017, Aeropay allows customers to pay businesses with their phones, through a direct bank transfer, taking credit card companies and their fear of federal regulations out of the picture, while still providing retailers and customers with a cash-free option and staying on the right side of the 2014 FinCEN guidance memo.
“Both sides of the transaction effectively link a bank account and money is transferred directly from an end customer’s account to the business account that they’re making the payment to, in this case, that dispensary,” Muller says. “Everything is reported clearly to regulators, businesses, the banks behind the scenes, and we’re following those compliance rules that are set by FinCEN.”
Originally from New York, Muller went to school at Franklin & Marshall College outside Philadelphia, where he played football and majored in political science. He “fell backwards” into the tech industry through an internship and eventually worked his way to vice president of software engineering and then vice president of product in the Chicago office before the company was sold.
Muller says he founded Aeropay in 2017 after seeing how “convoluted” payment solutions were, especially in underserved industries, like cannabis. It has grown to be used in more than 1,000 retail locations and the company has grown to 40 employees spread over two offices.
“We’ve just brought really good service, good compliance, really good tech to the industry,” Muller says. “And I think that was a wake-up call for operators that have never seen it before.”