Donatos Pizza signs three store franchise agreement in Houston, Texas
The brand has already made inroads in the state through existing locations in Flower Mound and Frisco.
The first of the three outlets is expected to open in 2025.
The company aims to boost its presence through the franchise model with immediate market opportunities in Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), Austin, Waco and East Texas.
With more than 100 locations targeted for opening, Donatos aims to establish itself as a major player in the Lone Star State's competitive foodservice sector.
Donatos vice-president of development and franchising Jeff Baldwin said: "We are looking to sign franchise groups and partners to build the first 30 locations in the Greater Houston market.
"With decades of experience and valuable insights, we offer exceptional support to our franchise partners, providing a scaleable and profitable opportunity for those seeking to join the brand."
Donatos' commitment to Texas is underscored by the development of multiple new stores within the DFW area.
It aims to capture a significant share of the Texan market, where several franchises are vying for dominance.
Donatos Pizza CEO and president Kevin King stated: "With strong brand recognition and proven success across the nation, we know our business model is the right fit for franchise groups looking to develop in Texas.
"This year, we are looking to add 3 to 5 new locations across DFW and Houston. We look forward to welcoming aspiring Texas entrepreneurs to explore our franchise opportunity and for customers to experience the difference of our high-quality pizza."
In September 2024, Donatos Pizza entered a new partnership in Panama City, Florida and identified further potential locations for growth across the north and central Florida regions: Destin-Ft Walton Beach, Gainesville, the Lake City area, Pensacola and Tallahassee.
"Donatos Pizza signs three store franchise agreement in Houston, Texas " was originally created and published by Verdict Food Service, a GlobalData owned brand.
The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Buzz Feed
27 minutes ago
- Buzz Feed
Singapore's Billionaire Club Grows To 49 And Here's 5 We Know About
According to Forbes' 2025 annual list of global billionaires, Singapore is home to 49 billionaires, a notable increase from the 39 recorded in 2024. The collective wealth of these individuals has also seen a significant rise, reaching a total of US$145.2 billion in 2025, up from US$115.5 billion the previous year. This growth highlights Singapore's continued status as a magnet for wealth, attracting high-net-worth individuals from around the world. The city-state's stable political environment, sophisticated financial services, and strategic location in Asia contribute to its appeal as a global hub for business and a preferred residence for the ultra-rich. The influx of new billionaires in 2025, many of whom are from the tech and finance sectors, further solidifies this trend. Here are the top billionaires in Singapore, along with a brief overview of their background and source of wealth: 1. Goh Cheng Liang: The paints tycoon holds the top spot as Singapore's richest man. His fortune stems from a majority stake in Japan's Nippon Paint Holdings, one of the world's largest paint manufacturers. Goh started his journey in the paint industry by launching his own small factory in Singapore before partnering with Nippon Paint, a collaboration that became the foundation of his immense wealth. 2. Li Xiting: A co-founder and chairman of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics, a leading medical devices firm. Li, a Singapore citizen, has built his wealth in the healthcare sector, with his company playing a significant role in providing medical equipment across the globe. Instagram: @ 3. Forrest Li: The founder, chairman, and CEO of Sea Ltd., a tech conglomerate behind popular brands like the e-commerce giant Shopee and gaming platform Garena. Li's net worth saw a substantial increase in 2025, reflecting the continued success and expansion of his internet company in the Southeast Asian market and Robert Ng: These brothers control the Far East Organization, Singapore's largest private landlord and property developer. Their vast wealth comes from the family's extensive real estate portfolio, which was established by their late father, Ng Teng Fong, and includes a significant presence on Singapore's famed Orchard Road. Instagram: @ 5. Zhang Yong: A restaurateur and chairman of Haidilao International Holding, a globally recognized hotpot chain. Originally from China, Zhang is a Singaporean citizen who has built a culinary empire with over 1,400 restaurants across Greater China and a growing international presence.
Business Insider
29 minutes ago
- Business Insider
$5.3 billion Abridge wants to make acquisitions. Here's what the healthcare AI startup is looking for.
Abridge is on a hot streak. Now, as the healthcare startup competes in the AI talent wars, it's preparing to go on a shopping spree. Abridge, which builds AI-powered software to transcribe and summarize patient-doctor conversations, landed a $300 million round in June led by Andreessen Horowitz. It was its second mega-raise in four months; the company had raked in a $250 million round in February. In 18 months, Abridge has raised $700 million in total and boosted its valuation from $850 million to $5.3 billion. Abridge CEO and cofounder Dr. Shiv Rao has big plans for all of that capital, he told Business Insider. "We've got a lot of money in the bank, and we want to spend 80% of it just going deeper, and expanding from connecting conversations to clinical notes into claims, clinical decision support, and care management," he said. With 80% of its cash reserved for doubling down on its tech, Abridge is earmarking the remaining 20% for potential acquisitions, Rao said. Those deals are looking increasingly critical in the brutal, competitive landscape of ambient healthcare scribes. Perhaps the most gutting release is set to come from Epic, the electronic health record giant that first partnered with Abridge back in 2023 in a watershed moment for the startup. Epic is now gearing up to launch an AI scribe of its own, Politico reported this month. Abridge declined to comment on the reports. Epic didn't respond to requests for comment. Epic's launch would follow healthcare startup Ambience, Abridge's biggest direct competitor, raising its own mega-round this summer. Ambience's $250 million Series C was co-led by Oak HC/FT and A16z, a longtime investor in Ambience that appears to be double-dipping in AI scribing with its growth investment in Abridge. And, as Abridge works to expand beyond scribing to use AI for tasks like processing medical bills, it's running up against private equity firms like New Mountain Capital pouring billions into their healthcare AI plays. Abridge has remained a frontrunner as the pressure builds. It's now working with over 150 large health systems, Rao said. The startup is also partnering closely with some of those health systems on its new products — Abridge said Tuesday it's collaborating with Pittsburgh health system Highmark Health on tech to automate prior authorization requests. And Abridge is focusing squarely on the patient-provider conversation as the starting point for each of its new tools or acquisition targets, Rao said. "The last thing we want to do is to become a company that's opening up a trench coat and selling you random things that have no coherence to our mission," he said. "But if there are things that are absolutely on our road map, it would be smart for us to have open ears." Eyeing fresh talent and tech As San Francisco-based Abridge has landed fundraise after fundraise, many startups hoping to get acquired by Abridge have entered Rao's inbox. While Rao said Abridge isn't "in talks" with any particular company, it's prepared to notch deals to grow faster. The startup hasn't made any acquisitions since its 2018 founding. "It feels like a lot of companies are asking if they can join us in some way. We need to be able to spend on things like that — data plays, ecosystem plays, and partnerships," Rao said. Acquiring top talent is Abridge's biggest priority, Rao said, adding that the startup has been competing with AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic in its recent hiring efforts. The AI talent wars are raising the stakes for startups like Abridge. As Big Tech companies fight over top AI researchers, including by offering pay packages in the millions or tens of millions, startups are touting their mission-centric approaches to convince engineers to join their teams over tech giants. Rao thinks Abridge can compete effectively for AI talent by offering hires the rare chance to build tools that matter, tech that actually improves people's health. "Finding ways to recruit more world-class talent as fast as possible is really, really important for us," he said. "If this is the legacy you want to leave, if you want to be a part of a company where every single day you can feel really good that you improved patient care, then we're going to resonate more than those horizontal technology companies." Abridge has about 330 employees, a number Rao is aiming to increase massively, especially in its engineering department, though he says the company won't rely exclusively on M&A to do that. Abridge builds its own large-language models that its widening suite of software sits upon. Those models make up its "contextual reasoning engine," which automates clinical notetaking that can combine ambient scribing with relevant context from the patient's existing health records and generate actionable outputs like medical orders and suggested billing codes. Rao said Abridge is considering buying data where necessary to continue training its models. With a combination build-and-buy strategy, Abridge is moving further into revenue cycle management, the hottest ticket item in healthcare AI, since it aims to help health systems capture more revenue while saving time for doctors. Rao said Abridge is also working on areas like risk adjustment, the process of estimating a patient's expected medical costs, that is critical for value-based care arrangements, and care coordination. Abridge wants to dig deeper into clinical decision support, too, a field that many healthcare startups have stayed away from, as the tech often walks a thin line to avoid facing FDA regulations. Abridge first stepped into the space in October by partnering with medical insights company UpToDate to surface relevant clinical evidence in Abridge's generated notes. Rao said he expects Abridge to share more information from the partnership later this year. As Abridge looks to take over more tasks for doctors, the company is being deliberate about how and when it'll meet "good friction" like FDA regulation, Rao said. "As we move into higher-stakes workflows from a patient outcomes perspective, we have to be really, really responsible," he said. "We try to be as transparent as we possibly can on how our models work and how we evaluate them. We'll need to continue to be transparent as we get into those new spaces."
Business Insider
29 minutes ago
- Business Insider
NetBox Labs raised $35 million amid an AI-driven infrastructure boom. See the pitch deck it used to land its Series B funding.
New York City-based NetBox Labs was cofounded in 2023 by CEO Kris Beevers as the for-profit steward of 10-year-old NetBox, an open-source network and infrastructure platform used by tens of thousands of companies globally. NetBox Labs offers five products built on top of the open-source software with advanced features to make it easier to run, Beevers said, including additional security and support, automation tools, and an AI assistant. It makes money by charging subscriptions based on the tools used and the size of a client's infrastructure. Sorenson Capital and Headline participated in the round, as did existing investors Flybridge Capital, Notable Capital, Mango Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, and IBM. The company had previously raised $20 million in Series A funding. AI is fueling demand for infrastructure services, and NetBox Labs' revenue is in the single-digit millions, Beevers said. It reinvests a "big chunk" back into the open-source tool. The company has roughly 200 customers, including AI data center giant CoreWeave, for whom it helps manage data center configurations and design future facilities. It also works with non-AI-focused companies, whose infrastructure has become more complex and dynamic amid ongoing digitization in recent years, Beevers said. This includes departments of transportation across the country — managing toll booths, speed cameras, and more— as well as ARM, Cisco, Constant Contact, J.P. Morgan, Kaiser Permanente, and Riot Games. The investment will be used to hire across engineering and sales. Beevers said the company will surpass 100 employees this year. Beevers previously served as the cofounder and CEO of NS1, which spun out NetBox Labs after selling the other part of its business to IBM in 2023. Jeremy Stretch, the creator of NetBox, also serves as a cofounder at NetBox Labs. Here's a look at the pitch deck the startup used to raise its $35 million Series B. Certain slides have been edited and removed so that the deck can be shared publicly. Network and Infrastructure Management Is Growing More Painful, Exponentially NetBox = Leverage to Massive Platform Play NetBox Wins in an AI World
