“Toast has proven that you can create billion-dollar companies here in Boston,” Belsito says. Belsito launched the company in 2016 after several conversations with Narang and Fredette. Aaron PressmanĪmong those who have benefited from the counsel of Toast’s founders is Nick Belsito, founder of OpenCity, a startup developing artificial intelligence assistants for restaurants. Steve Fredette, a cofounder of Toast, talking to students at The Harvard Undergraduate Venture Capital Group 2023 Entrepreneurship Summit. After his talk, Fredette spent another hour chatting with students on topics from locating a startup in Boston to Toast’s strategy of hiring experienced restaurant workers to sell systems to restaurant owners. Their influence reaches throughout the innovation ecosystem, from established companies, to startups, to aspiring entrepreneurs.įredette, for example, recently addressed hundreds of college students on starting a business. These contributions to technology, business, and the community have made Fredette, Narang, and Grimm The Boston Globe’s top Tech Power Players in 2023. “And a big part of our success is seeing the ecosystem that builds from that and from our team and from others that are inspired by us.” “It was always our goal to build a pillar company in Boston,” Fredette says. They are seeding startups, acting as mentors, and advancing diversity in a tech industry notoriously white and male. Today, Toast has systems in some 79,000 restaurants, employs 4,500 people, and generates nearly $3 billion in annual revenues.īut Toast and its founders have had far greater impact than building a company valued at about $9 billion. This story was updated on May 9 with a statement from Toast.Toast overcame not only these obstacles, but also a pandemic that shut down its clients and kept customers away from restaurants for months. Spokespeople for Alexandria and Samuels did not respond to requests for comment. into a lab - a project that’s in part subsidizing a proposed 115-unit housing development behind the Trinity Orthodox Cathedral nearby. Samuels is also proposing to convert the site of the existing Star Market at 1400 Boylston St. That lab will eventually be home to a new Star Market grocery store. That deal kept Boston-based development firm Samuels & Associates on as a minority owner and manager of the property.Īlexandria and Samuels are also building a lab at 421 Park, the former Bed Bath & Beyond location situated between 401 Park and the MBTA Green Line Fenway station. The California-based life-science real estate development firm bought 401 Park in early 2021 for more than $1.5 billion in a bid to convert the building into lab-ready space. Several tech companies, in particular, have pared back space requirements amid a widespread shift toward more hybrid and remote work, while new leasing has slowed sharply from prepandemic levels.Īlexandria, meanwhile, has been rapidly growing its footprint in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood. Toast is the latest company to downsize in Boston’s office market, which is enduring its highest vacancy rate in two decades. The shares have gained 7 percent so far this year. Shares of Toast, which will report first-quarter earnings on Tuesday, climbed 5 percent on Monday after the lease termination filing. Toast employed 4,500 people worldwide at the end of 2022. But since 2019, it has been scaling back its presence. Toast moved to 401 Park - a massive art deco Sears building that has been converted to office and retail space - in 2015, and expanded its office footprint in the building four times before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “As you can imagine, Toasters have lots of opinions about where we should go.” “We’re currently in the process of identifying our new location,” a spokeswoman for the company said in an e-mail. In a statement to the Globe, Toast said it was looking for new office space in the area.
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