Le Zhang

Founder and CEO, Squadle, Inc.

Boston

Le Zhang is the Founder and CEO of Squadle, the AI Automation platform for multi-unit restaurant operations. He has created a back-end system for the $250 billion fast food industry that provides a software solution using tablets and sensors to capture data, maintain operational consistency and accountability, meet compliance standards, and manage food safety.

Le Zhang launched his tech career while still in high school, landing his first software development job at State Street at the ripe old age of 16. "I got to figure out how these big corporations operate," he says, "but they were way too slow for the kinds of things I wanted to work on." Fittingly, Zhang’s Kendall Square startup, Squadle, is all about capitalizing on the corporate world’s reluctance to adopt change, offering sensors and automation to digitize operations for two of the last industries that still rely on paper records: retail and restaurants. Customers so far include Dunkin’ Donuts, Sonic, and Chick-fil-A, and that’s just the beginning, Zhang says: "In five years, I can see every multi-unit retail store using our system." In July 2018, Squadle, Inc. secured $3M in funding to expand operations as it brings modern, digital, data-driven solutions to the largest multi-unit brands in the nation. The company will use the capital to grow their team and augment their products with industry-first machine vision capabilities.