TouchBistro secures $150M growth capital from Francisco Partners

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By CPE News

CPE News (11.1.2022) – TouchBistro has raised CDN $150 million in growth financing from Francisco Partners.

Toronto based TouchBistro is an award-winning restaurant management system that makes running a restaurant easier, providing comprehensive services, including POS and customer engagement solutions on a single platform. TouchBistro helps restaurateurs streamline and simplify their operations, increase sales, and deliver a great guest experience.

TouchBistro will use new funding to accelerate its growth initiatives, including expanding product offerings, core services, and strategic acquisitions as it continues to meet the evolving needs of its customers.

RBC Capital Markets served as exclusive placement agent to TouchBistro. Stikeman Elliott acted as legal advisor to TouchBistro while Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld acted as legal advisor to Francisco Partners.

TouchBistro is principally backed by OMERS Growth Equity and OMERS Ventures, with investments from Relay Ventures, BDC Capital, Kensington Capital Partner Limited, RBC Ventures, BMO Capital Partners, Napier Park Financial Partners, Barclays Bank, and JPMorgan Chase.

photo credit: Touchbistro

News Release

TouchBistro Raises $150 Million From Francisco Partners to Accelerate Growth and Pursue Strategic Acquisitions

TORONTO and NEW YORK – November 1, 2022 – TouchBistro, a leading restaurant management platform transforming the restaurant category, today announced the completion of CAD$150 million in growth financing from Francisco Partners (“Francisco”), a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses. The funds will be used by TouchBistro to accelerate the company’s growth initiatives, including expanding product offerings, core services, and strategic acquisitions as it continues to meet the evolving needs of its customers.

Over the past decade, TouchBistro has evolved from an award-winning restaurant point-of-sale solution to become a comprehensive restaurant management system that streamlines and simplifies every aspect of running a restaurant on a single platform. From reservations, online ordering, payment processing, menu management, inventory management, to accounting, staff scheduling, and marketing, TouchBistro enables restaurants to increase profitability and efficiency and improve the overall customer experience.

“Our industry leading technology, optimized business model, and uncompromising focus on our customer experience has us well-positioned to accelerate our growth in the vast restaurant and hospitality sector throughout North America and beyond. Francisco Partners shares our enthusiasm about the growth potential for TouchBistro and our customers,” says Samir Zabaneh, CEO and Chairman of TouchBistro. “In addition to providing us with access to capital, Francisco Partners also has significant domain expertise and industry connections that will enhance and accelerate our growth trajectory and acquisition plans.”

Over the past two years, TouchBistro has enriched its platform by integrating automated marketing and customer relationship management functionality. The platform now incorporates online ordering, delivery management, contactless payments, and other customer engagement tools. TouchBistro also expanded its executive team with highly experienced leaders to take the company to the next level.

“We are extremely excited to back Samir and his talented team. Our expertise in the financial technology and application software sectors makes us the perfect partner to support TouchBistro’s growth and help meet its acquisition objectives,” said Peter Christodoulo, Partner and Head of Fintech at Francisco Partners.

Peter Gingold, a Managing Director of Credit and Structured Solutions at Francisco Partners, added, “The TouchBistro team has done an exceptional job building and delivering an end-to-end restaurant management platform. They continuously demonstrate an impressive commitment to driving innovation that supports the needs of restaurants today and as the industry evolves into the future.”

RBC Capital Markets served as Exclusive Placement Agent to TouchBistro. Stikeman Elliott acted as legal advisor to TouchBistro. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld acted as legal advisor to Francisco Partners.

About TouchBistro
TouchBistro is an award-winning restaurant management system that makes running a restaurant easier, providing comprehensive services, including POS and customer engagement solutions on a single platform. TouchBistro helps restaurateurs streamline and simplify their operations, increase sales, and deliver a great guest experience. TouchBistro is deployed in more than 16,000 restaurants located in over 100 countries with a combined gross sales volume of over $14 billion.

About Francisco Partners
Francisco Partners is a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch over 20 years ago, Francisco Partners has invested in over 400 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. With approximately $45 billion in capital raised to date, the firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information on Francisco Partners, please visit www.franciscopartners.com.