Toast, a Boston-based restaurant point-of-sale (POS) tech startup, has soared to an $8 billion valuation just seven months after slashing staff numbers by half.
Toast laid off 1,300 staff this April amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has hit restaurant sales by up to 80%. But having switched its focus to digital sales and contactless payment, the firm enjoyed a sales boom that prompted a share purchase offering this week, ramping its value up from $4.9bn to $8bn.
Though the company has not released details of the sale, CNBC reports it offered current and former staff the chance to buy up to 800,000 shares at $75 each.
Last week the 2011-founded company offered a new suite of tools to better enable contactless payment for take-out customers. Today it sits among a growing list of food startups benefitting from the coronavirus’ pushing diners to get takeout more often. Uber Eats and DoorDash have also seen their valuation soar in recent months.
But it’s not all love in the delivery sector. Earlier this month Toast sued San Francisco rival SpotOn Transact Inc for what it claims are a series of violations relating to non-competing obligations surrounding its recruitment system.