Todd Graves financed the first Raising Cane's with money earned as a boilermaker and commercial fisherman, then grew the chicken-finger concept into a large founder-led restaurant chain. [1][2]
Funding the first restaurant himself
Raising Cane's says Graves developed the chicken-finger restaurant idea in college but could not get conventional bank financing. He worked long hours at an oil refinery and later on an Alaskan fishing boat to save money for the business. [2]
Graves combined those savings with an SBA loan and opened the first Raising Cane's near Louisiana State University in 1996. The company still describes him as founder and an active leader of the brand. [2][1]
A founder-owned restaurant fortune
Forbes reports that Raising Cane's has expanded to hundreds of locations and billions of dollars in annual sales, making the private chain the main source of Graves's fortune. The company does not publish a precise personal ownership percentage in the sources used here. [1][2]
The financing path is important to the fortune story because it links earned savings and an SBA-backed launch to retained founder ownership in the later chain. Raising Cane's sales indicate operating scale, but revenue is not the same as company value or Graves's personal net worth, especially while the business remains private and his exact stake is not disclosed here. [1][2]
Sources for background
Sources reviewed Sep 15, 2026.
- Todd Graves · Forbes · Mar 10, 2026
- Who We Are · Raising Cane's
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