(Reuters) -Toast Inc is aiming for a valuation of up to $18 billion after raising the price range for its initial public offering in the U.S., as the restaurant-software maker looks to cash in on a record boom in capital markets this year.
Toast, founded in 2011, offers a software platform that allows restaurants to keep up with the fast-changing needs of their business, including managing online orders, operating an on-demand delivery network and integrating payments.
The company said it was now looking to sell nearly 21.7 million shares priced between $34 and $36 each, according to a regulatory filing https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1650164/000119312521276664/d166297ds1a.htm on Monday. It had earlier aimed to price the shares between $30 and $33 each.
At the top end of the new range, Boston-based Toast would raise up to $782.6 million in its IPO.
As of June 30, the company has partnered with nearly 48,000 restaurant locations and has processed more than $38 billion in gross payment volume over the past 12 months, the filing showed.
Toast, last valued at $5 billion after a funding round in February, is looking to list in a market that has seen several high-flying startups like Coinbase Global Inc, Roblox Corp and China’s Didi Global Inc go public this year.
Unprecedented government stimulus and near-zero interest rates brought on to combat the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic are fueling the bull run in U.S. capital markets.
Toast, which counts TPG, Tiger Global Management and American Express Ventures among its investors, was forced to cut its workforce by half in the early days of the pandemic.
It has shifted focus to products such as delivery networks and contactless payments on strong demand for such services last year.
Toast will list its stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “TOST”.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)
