SA国际传媒

Restaurant management platform announced it has raised , more than to $2.7 billion.

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and led the round, which also included participation from existing investors , and funds and accounts managed by .

The raise comes about eight months after Toast reached unicorn status when it brought in $115 million in a that included participation from Tiger Global, T. Rowe Price,聽and . (Read more about that here.) It also takes the Boston company鈥檚 total raised since its inception in 2011 to just .

While Toast did not give exact revenue numbers, it did note in its press release that revenue in 2018. The company isn’t releasing specific metrics around growth in ARR, but Toast Senior Vice President of Marketing told SA国际传媒 News that it was 鈥渞oughly the same鈥� last year. It鈥檚 that kind of impressive growth that new investor TCV found particularly appealing.

TCV General Partner said his firm has been watching the company over the past few years and has been impressed with its ability to move from a POS (point-of-sale) product to an operating system for a restaurant, with both front office and back office functionalities. The evolution has resulted in a number of different revenue streams for the company.

鈥淰ery few companies are able to scale at these rates while maintaining or improving their growth rate and efficiencies,鈥� Yuan, who will join Toast鈥檚 board of directors, told SA国际传媒 News. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e executed incredibly well, building a big go-to-market.鈥�

Founded in late 2011 by , , and , Toast first launched its product in 2013. It currently boasts that 鈥渢ens of thousands of restaurants鈥� are powered by its platform. In 2018 alone, the number of restaurants more than doubled, according to the company.

The 1,500-person company said it plans to invest over $1 billion in R&D over the next five years 鈥渢o continue building software and hardware designed specifically for the restaurant industry.鈥�

Its products include Toast Go, a mobile point-of-service platform, and Toast Guest Feedback, which are both aimed at helping restaurants speed up service 鈥渂y up to 40 percent,鈥� boost revenue and get real-time customer feedback.

鈥淭he adoption of [Toast Go] really accelerated growth and has also had a big impact in terms of visibility for Toast,鈥� Hamilton said. He also said that the on-demand economy represents opportunities to elevate the guest experience as well.

鈥淩estauranteurs are increasingly having to navigate this on-demand economy both from a physical perspective in the restaurant and from a digital perspective,鈥� Hamilton expressed.

鈥淲e鈥檒l always look at different paths to growth. Historically we’ve focused entirely on building and releasing our own capabilities,鈥� Hamilton said in response to our queries about future acquisitions.

Toast also plans to use the new capital to do more hiring in its R&D, customer success, and sales and marketing departments.

So far in 2019 Toast said it has hired on-the-ground employees across the U.S. in addition to engineering teams in Dublin, Ireland by recruiting from the software, financial technology, and food & beverage industries.

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