Graves is the founder of Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, a fast-food chain with more than 900 stores in the US and Middle East. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based company opened its first restaurant in 1996. Graves also produced and hosted TV shows Restaurant Recovery and Secret Sauce With Todd Graves.
The majority of Graves' fortune is derived from Raising Cane's Chicken Tenders, a fast-food chain he founded in 1996. It has more than 900 stores as of April 2025, according to a representative of the company.
Graves owns about 90% of the company through a trust, Sockeyes LP, according to the memorandum. Raising Cane's booked revenue of $5.6 billion in 2025 and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $1.1 billion, according to a person familiar with its finances who did not wish to be identified because the information is private. Its valued using the enterprise value to Ebitda and enterprise value to sales multiples of publicly-traded peers Wingstop Inc, Domino's Pizza Inc, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc, Portillo's Inc and Dutch Bros Inc.
In May 2026 the financials for Raising Cane's were updated to reflect the company's 2025 results and the peers used for its valuation were changed, resulting in a $6.7 billion increase in its calculated value.
Graves is calculated to have collected gross distributions of more than $900 million from Raising Cane's since 2020, according to the person. His personal assets, including art and real estate, were worth about $1.2 billion as of May 2026, the person said.
A spokesperson for Raising Cane's declined to comment on his net worth in May 2026.
Graves was born in 1972 in New Orleans, and raised in Baton Rouge.
He wrote a business plan with friend Craig Silvey for a restaurant that would serve only chicken fingers. Silvey's business professor told him the concept would never work.
Unable to secure financing from banks, Graves saved money working as a refinery boilermaker and salmon fisherman. The pair opened their first restaurant in 1996 on the campus of Louisiana State University, naming it after Graves' dog.
By June 2024, the company had expanded to more than 800 locations across the United States and Middle East.
In 2020, Raising Cane's produced a TV show called Restaurant Recovery where Graves visited restaurants and helped them recover from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Graves lives in Baton Rouge with his wife, Gwen.