Piston Technologies Secures $15M to Scale Cardless Fuel Payments for Trucking Fleets

Piston Technologies Inc. announced a $15 million Series A funding round to accelerate growth of its cardless payment platform designed for commercial trucking companies purchasing fuel for their vehicle fleets. FPV Ventures led the investment, with participation from returning backers Spark Capital and Pear VC. The company has now accumulated $22.5 million in total funding.

The startup addresses a critical operational challenge within the U.S. trucking sector, a $900 billion industry that continues to rely on conventional payment methods for fuel purchases. Fleet operators typically distribute fuel cards or corporate credit cards to drivers, a practice that creates significant vulnerabilities. According to research from Wex Inc., trucking companies lose between 5% and 15% of their annual fuel budgets to fraudulent transactions, while also struggling with poor spending visibility and administrative complexity in payment reconciliation.

Piston's founders, Chief Executive Vikram Sekhon and Chief Operating Officer Shivam Shah, developed the solution from personal experience as former fleet operators who encountered these exact pain points daily. Their platform operates as a two-sided cardless network linking trucking fleets directly to fuel retailers. At the point of sale, the system authorizes purchases for designated drivers and vehicles using QR code scanning technology.

The platform captures comprehensive transaction data including fuel volume, cost, timestamp and location, creating a complete audit trail. By eliminating physical cards, the system prevents unauthorized purchases such as drivers buying non-fuel items on company accounts. Piston Guard, an artificial intelligence-powered feature, evaluates transactions in real time to detect and block fraudulent activity before processing. The Piston Analytics Agent assists fleet operators in analyzing fuel spending patterns to identify operational efficiencies without manual data review.

The system delivers distinct advantages for both fleet operators and gas station merchants. Operators gain real-time fuel spending visibility and eliminate card issuance and tracking overhead. Merchants benefit from reliable recurring customer relationships, reduced transaction costs, and increased in-store revenue when drivers purchase items with personal funds rather than company accounts.

Sekhon emphasized that traditional card-based payment infrastructure was designed for a different era and fails to meet trucking industry needs. "We removed the card and built a network that authorizes every purchase for a specific driver and vehicle at the point of sale," he stated. "This round lets us expand that infrastructure until no commercial driver has to ask whether a station accepts Piston."

Piston's expansion trajectory demonstrates substantial market traction. Over the past 12 months, the company expanded its merchant network by more than 40 times, driving an eightfold increase in annual payment volume. The platform now operates at more than 2,000 gas stations across 48 states, supporting a 98% customer retention rate. The company plans to establish network coverage across every U.S. region within 18 months, with future expansion into broader logistics payment infrastructure once fuel coverage is complete.

FPV Ventures' Nikunj Kothari highlighted the investment thesis, noting that fuel represents one of the largest business-to-business spending categories in the United States. Trucking firms spend billions annually on fuel, yet the majority of these transactions occur through outdated infrastructure. Kothari emphasized Piston's technical advantage: "Vikram ran hundreds of trucks and felt this pain every day, and Shivam recruited thousands of drivers before they wrote a line of code," he said. "This is a new payment network in a massive market, built by people who actually lived the problem." The platform's ability to process fuel payments directly without card networks or intermediaries enables significantly lower transaction costs.