Dive Brief:
- Boston-based restaurant payments company Toast said in a press release today that it has acquired the private New York-based company Sling, which provides restaurants with technology tools for managing their employees.
- The two companies have been partners since April 2021, allowing Toast’s restaurant customers to tap Sling’s capabilities for managing employee shift scheduling and communications, according to the July 7 release. Adding Sling lets Toast give the 11 million restaurant employees using its system the ability to “view and swap shifts, manage their availability remotely and receive real-time communication,” the release said.
- The addition of Sling could add $5 to $10 million in revenue to Toast’s top line, according to a report from analysts at the financial firm Robert W. Baird. The publicly-traded Toast reported $1.7 billion in annual revenue last year, according to its annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in March.
Dive Insight:
As of the end of last year, Toast provided its payment technology services to 57,000 restaurant locations that had processed about $57 billion of gross payment volume for the year, according to the annual SEC filing.
A spokesperson for Toast declined to provide financial details for the acquisition, or to disclose Sling’s employee headcount or annual revenue. Sling, a privately-held company, was founded in 2015, according to the Baird report.
Toast, founded in late 2011, has been a top point-of-sale player in the increasingly competitive restaurant technology industry. It sold shares in an initial public offering last year. Still, the arena is dominated by long-time heavyweights NCR and Oracle.
The acquisition of Sling will allow Toast to give its restaurant clients an advantage in the tight labor market, the company said. With U.S. employers battling to retain and recruit workers, such tools may help restaurants attract and retain employees.
“Through features including scheduling templates, in-app messaging and multi-location team management, Sling helps restaurants staff more efficiently and better manage labor costs, and helps increase employee job satisfaction,” the release said.
The acquisition has closed already, according to the spokesperson for Toast.
