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This deal comes after Toast recently announced 120 job vacancies at its new Dublin office.
Toast, a company that provides point-of-sale, front-of-house, back-of-house and guest-facing technology to restaurants, announced its first acquisition this week.
Yesterday (24 July), Toast acquired StratEx for an undisclosed amount. Founded in 2000, StratEx is a company that helps mid-sized businesses manage strategic HR functions, with software that automates paper-intensive aspects of HR and recruitment.
With the acquisition of StratEx, Toast is aiming to help its clients automate personnel and payroll services such as onboarding, scheduling and labour law compliance.
The former StratEx product has now merged with Toast Payroll & Team Management, creating an all-in-one HR platform for the restaurant industry.
Increasing retention
“At Toast, we know that for a restaurant to be successful, it often starts with recruiting and retaining a great team, yet many restaurants wrestle with employee turnover that can exceed 70pc,” said Chris Comparato, the company’s CEO.
“By adding StratEx to the Toast platform, we can better support restaurants of all sizes in simplifying HR, payroll and talent management on a platform that works seamlessly with Toast and our technology partner ecosystem.”
Tim Barash, CFO of Toast, also noted in an interview with CrunchBase that retention is an issue in the hospitality industry: “If you walk down the street in many cities in the US, you’re going to see ‘Help wanted’ signs in every restaurant.”
He added that many of Toast’s existing clients – of which it reportedly has tens of thousands, including chains such as Jamba Juice and Michelin-star restaurants – complain that there is a shortage of talent.
StratEx CEO Adam Ochstein said: “We’re passionate about the restaurant industry and helping our community of restaurateurs succeed in today’s dynamic – and often challenging – labour market.
“In Toast we discovered a partner that is equally as passionate about the restaurant community. Joining forces allows us to accelerate investments in our platform and build new employee-facing products that will allow restaurants running on Toast to attract, hire and retain great teams.”
The news comes after Toast’s recent announcement that it is expanding its team in Dublin, with the creation of 120 jobs.
These new roles at the company’s Westmoreland Street office will be focused on product development. In particular, Toast is seeking software engineers, data analysts, product designers and software developers.
