Finance · Profile from Finance Research Companion
Toast
The Boston company that built a cloud point-of-sale system for restaurants and turned it into a payments business. Founded in 2011 by three engineers from Endeca, Toast sells restaurant-specific hardware, software for ordering, kitchens, payroll and marketing, and embedded card processing, and makes most of its gross profit from the payments that run through the terminals. It survived a near-death moment in April 2020, when US restaurant sales collapsed and it cut half its staff; went public in September 2021 at $40 a share and a ~$20bn valuation; withdrew a $0.99 online-order fee within days in 2023 after a restaurant backlash, and its shares fell sharply; and became GAAP profitable in 2024. By June 2026 it ran ~180,000 locations with ~$2.4bn of annualized recurring run-rate, and had moved into enterprise chains (Applebee's), retail and international markets.
At a glance
- Founded
- 2011, Cambridge, Massachusetts (company; some sources say 2012); initially a mobile payments and loyalty app, pivoted to restaurant POS by 2013 (S-1, verify)
- Founders
- Steve Fredette, Aman Narang and Jonathan Grimm, former engineers at Endeca, the enterprise search company acquired by Oracle (S-1)
- Headquarters
- Boston, Massachusetts; large operations in Dublin, Ireland (engineering), and Omaha, Nebraska (reported)
- Ownership / structure
- Public company (NYSE: TOST) since September 22, 2021. Dual-class shares at IPO (Class B ten votes, verify sunset). Joined the S&P MidCap 400 on July 1, 2026, classified in the Financials sector (S&P Dow Jones Indices, reported)
- Leadership (2026)
- Aman Narang, co-founder and CEO (since January 1, 2024, succeeding Chris Comparato, CEO 2015–23); Mark Hawkins, board chair; Elena Gomez, CFO (since 2022, verify); Steve Fredette, co-founder and president (verify current title)
- Products
- Android-based POS terminals, handhelds (Toast Go), kitchen display systems, kiosks, drive-thru; software for online ordering, delivery, loyalty, marketing, inventory (xtraCHEF), scheduling (Sling), payroll and team management; Toast Capital (merchant financing); Toast Retail; enterprise suite; Toast IQ AI assistant
- Scale
- ~164,000 locations at December 2025 (+22%), ~180,000 at June 2026; GPV ~$195.1bn in 2025 (+23%) (company)
- Revenue and profit
- 2025: revenue ~$6.1bn (verify exact), GAAP net income ~$342m (2024: ~$19m, the first profitable year), adjusted EBITDA ~$633m; ARR just over $2.0bn (company, February 12, 2026). Q2 2026: ARR ~$2.4bn (+25%); recurring gross profit ~$595m (+28%); 2026 recurring gross-profit guidance raised to ~$2.325–2.355bn (company, August 4, 2026)
- Capital / regulatory status
- Not a bank. Registered with the card networks as a payment facilitator through sponsor acquiring banks and processors (verify current partners); Toast Capital loans originated through a partner bank (WebBank, reported, verify); payroll and tax services subject to state rules
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding and the pivot to restaurant POS (2011–13); bundling payments with software (2015–19); Toast Capital and payroll (2018–19); the COVID collapse and 50% staff cut (2020); IPO (2021); the $0.99 fee reversal (2023); new CEO, layoffs and first profitable year (2024); enterprise, retail and international expansion (2024–26)
8 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2012
Founding and the Pivot to Restaurant POS
Founding / pivot
2015
Bundling Payments into the POS
Pricing change / launch (integrated payments as standard)
2019
Toast Capital Payroll and the Platform Push
Launch / acquisition
2020
COVID Collapse and the 50 Percent Cut
Restructuring / pivot
2021
IPO
IPO
2023
The 99 Cent Fee Reversal
Pricing change (reversed)
2024
New CEO Layoffs and First Profitable Year
Restructuring
2025
Enterprise Retail and International Expansion
Expansion (new segments and markets)