Presto, then known by its legal name E la Carte, was founded by
Rajat Suri in October 2008 in
Massachusetts. Suri was a graduate student at MIT when he created the first E la Carte product, a tablet that allows restaurant customers to order and pay through a tablet. He left his graduate program to become a waiter in order to learn more about the restaurant industry. Previously, Suri was a cofounder of Zimride, now known as
Lyft. E la Carte was accepted into Silicon Valley–based seed accelerator
Y Combinator in 2010. The same year, Suri moved to
California and opened a
Palo Alto office. E la Carte first installed its touchscreen tablets in restaurants in the
San Francisco Bay Area in 2011. The tablets could take orders, act as a
sommelier, receive payments, split bills, and calculate tips. In August 2011,
Lightbank invested $4 million in venture capital in E la Carte. In June 2013,
Intel Capital invested $13.5 million in Series B funding in E la Carte, with participation from Romulus Capital. Later that year, E la Carte relocated to a new office in
Redwood City.
Applebee's signed a deal with E la Carte to deploy 100,000 tableside tablets to its locations by the end of 2014. E la Carte rebranded to Presto in 2018. In 2019, Presto raised $30 million in growth financing led by
Recruit Holdings and Romulus Capital to grow its AI platform. Presto began piloting its computer vision program called Presto Vision in October 2019. In November 2021, Presto announced a merger with Ventoux CCM Acquisition Corp. The company will be renamed Presto Technologies, Inc. In February 2024, Presto named Gee Lefevre as its new CEO. Lefevre was tasked with a turnaround of the business following several months of instability. Three months after his appointment, Lefevre conducted a number of interviews indicating a "reemergence" of Presto with several new product advancements and overall business stability. == Products ==