On May 23, 2017, Hound Labs Inc., a marijuana breathalyzer company in Oakland, announced that it has closed its Series B round of financing with $8.1 million from Benchmark, a California-based venture capital firm that has made successful early-stage investments in companies like Uber and Snapchat, among others.

Mitch Lasky, general partner at Benchmark, and Dick Wolf, television writer and early investor in Hound Labs, are joining the board of directors at Hound Labs. The company also announced that it’s conducting clinical trials at San Francisco General Hospital to study the efficacy of its device.

“In the past, employers and law enforcement professionals focused on possession and use; after legalization, impairment – whether behind the wheel or on the job – becomes the new enforcement paradigm,” Lasky said in a press release. “Groundbreaking science is necessary to make an accurate measurement of recently used cannabis, and Hound Labs is uniquely positioned to deliver a solution to the market that respects the needs of the enforcement community as well as the rights of legitimate cannabis users.”

For its clinical trials, Hound Labs has partnered with the University of California, San Francisco, at SFGH to test how well the device can detect a marijuana user’s impairment.

According to Dr. Mike Lynn, CEO of Hound Labs, “These clinical trials are important not only for our company, but also for our country as they are the first to measure recent THC use in breath with a highly accurate portable device that can be easily used at the roadside or in the workplace.”