Technology

Toast announces $250M in funding

The restaurant-management platform more than doubled the number of brands using it last year.
Photograph: Shutterstock

Toast, the restaurant-management platform, announced Monday that it raised $250 million in Series E funding. The funds, led by TCV and Tiger Global Management, along with existing investors, puts its valuation at $2.7 billion.

“At TCV, we invest in companies that have the potential to reshape the entire industry,” said David Yuan, general partner at TCV, in a statement. “Our investment will enable Toast to extend their platform beyond point-of-sale and guest-facing technology, and in doing so, create a powerful SaaS platform with a superlative business model.”

Toast currently powers “tens of thousands” of restaurants, including brands such as Joe Coffee Company, Eggs Up Grill and Jose Andres’ ThinkFoodGroup. The company increased revenue 148% in 2018 and more than doubled the number of brands that use it.

Over the past year, Toast has launched a number of new solutions to the market, CFO and Chief Business Officer Tim Barash told Restaurant Business. That includes Toast Go, a mobile POS handheld build for the restaurant industry. “Today, one out of every two new customers elect to deploy Toast Go to reduce turn times and increase revenue,” Barash says.

The company also introduced Toast Guest Feedback, a platform that collects real-time guest feedback via Toast Go or digital receipts, earlier this year.

The company plans to invest $1 billion in research and development over the next five years, the release said. Specifically, it will build hardware and software specifically for the restaurant industry to help with guest engagement and retention, workforce recruitment and retention and operations improvements that will drive profitability.

Toast launched in 2013. It now is a platform that combines restaurant POS, front of house, back of house and guest-facing technologies.

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Financing

The market for restaurant chains is heating up

The Bottom Line: A pair of firms are reportedly making a play for Papa Johns, and Bojangles is apparently on the market again. Buyers appear eager to take on certain types of restaurant chains.

Food

An eye on food waste inspires a chicken salad that becomes a best seller

Behind the Menu: Millers All Day repurposed leftover breakfast waffles into croutons to create a new signature—the Chicken and Waffle Salad. It’s a unique spin on Southern comfort.

Emerging Brands

Pepper Lunch carves a niche in the Panda Express-dominated world of Asian fast casual

The Japan-born franchise brand has 540 units globally, but only nine in the U.S. CEO Troy Hooper expects to see 20 to 25 open across the country in the next 12 months.

Trending

More from our partners