New direct cost community based by former fleet homeowners eliminates fraud, reduces prices, and drives enterprise to unbiased gasoline stations—constructed from each the US and India with headquarters in Cupertino and a fast-growing engineering hub in Kolkata.
India, June 11, 2025: Piston, a cardless funds platform that connects business fleets and gasoline stations, right now introduced it has raised $6.1 million in seed funding, led by Spark Capital with participation from Pear VC and BOND.
The spherical follows a $1.4 million pre-seed raised by the PearX accelerator, bringing Piston’s complete funding to $7.5 million. Piston will use the capital to scale go-to-market operations and broaden its fast-growing community of unbiased gasoline stations and business fleet companions.
Based by former fleet operators, Vikram Sekhon and Shivam Shah, Piston is redesigning gasoline funds from the bottom up. Fairly than stacking one other card on high of legacy methods, Piston constructed its personal infrastructure, which eliminates card fraud and retail worth markups, two of the largest ache factors for fleets.
Drivers pay utilizing a safe, app-generated QR code that ties every transaction to a particular car, time, location, and gasoline kind.
On the backend, gasoline stations join on to Piston’s platform, getting access to new business demand and real-time insights with out the necessity for pricey {hardware} or third-party interference.
“Gasoline was our second-largest expense after payroll, and probably the most chaotic to handle,” mentioned Vikram Sekhon, co-founder and CEO of Piston.
“We tried each answer in the marketplace after we ran our personal fleets, and none of them labored. So we determined to construct one ourselves from scratch with out the bags of legacy card networks.”
The result’s a brand new type of funds community that serves either side of the gasoline market. For fleets, Piston affords real-time fraud prevention, financial savings by direct station relationships, and nil card administration overhead.
For stations, particularly the 90% which are franchise-owned, Piston affords a method to appeal to loyal business enterprise—one thing they’ve traditionally been unable to do, even with model affiliations.
The corporate is presently serving over 120 fleets, throughout 800 gasoline stations, and processing greater than $20 million in annualized quantity, rising 50% month-over-month.
With the seed spherical, Piston is actively hiring throughout its go-to-market and product groups, with operations in Cupertino, California and Lehi, Utah.
Piston additionally maintains a robust presence in Kolkata, India, the place co-founder Shivam Shah spent over a decade working and constructing companies.
“Being from Kolkata and having lived and labored right here for a few years gave me the perception and conviction that we will construct a world-class funds product from right here—competing with and beating giant, well-funded startups within the US, and we’re proving that daily,” Shah mentioned. Piston’s Kolkata workplace, launched in April final yr with simply 5 folks, has grown to greater than 25 staff members in below a yr.
The corporate plans to double that quantity over the subsequent yr because it continues to spend money on engineering, operations, and buyer success. Piston’s whole engineering staff is predicated in Kolkata, alongside a good portion of its operations and buyer success groups. “We’re dedicated to constructing from right here,” Shah added.
“Piston isn’t simply changing the fleet card, it’s redefining the economics of business gasoline funds,” mentioned Arpan Shah at Spark Capital. “From the very starting, Vikram and Shivam had been laser-focused on an issue they knew intimately.
They’ve constructed probably the most progressive means for each last-mile fleet homeowners and gasoline stations to transact seamlessly and transparently with one another with entry to information insights that had been beforehand not possible for them to see with every other answer.
We’re thrilled to companion with them on their journey to rethink gasoline funds for 1000’s of small companies within the transportation business.”
“Vikram and Shivam have each operated fleets themselves and lived the ache of skyrocketing gasoline bills and rampant abuse on fleet playing cards,” mentioned Shravan Reddy, Companion at Pear VC.
“They recognized an enormous drawback impacting an underserved market and we imagine there may be monumental alternative. Throughout their time in our pre-seed accelerator PearX, they persistently exceeded each development goal and we’re excited to proceed supporting them on this subsequent section.”
Piston continues to broaden its station companion community and is working with unbiased gasoline retailers throughout the nation to combine immediately with its platform, unlocking business demand and modernizing probably the most neglected elements of the mobility economic system.
“Gasoline and bank cards had been bleeding us dry with hidden charges, negligible rebates, and countless fraud disputes,” mentioned Ash Kapoor, President at Saga Kapital Group Inc with a fleet of 200+ vans throughout a number of states.
“After transferring to Piston, we’ve lowered our gasoline spend by double digits and reduce reconciliation from two days to 2 clicks. Our drivers replenish quicker, our accountants sleep higher, and the financial savings drop straight to the underside line.”
ABOUT PISTON:
Piston is a cardless funds platform for fleets and gasoline stations, changing outdated card-based methods with direct, safe, and clever transactions.
Constructed by former fleet homeowners who skilled the ache firsthand, Piston eliminates fraud, unlocks financial savings, and builds loyalty between stations and business drivers.
Headquartered in Cupertino, California, with operation hubs in Lehi, Utah and Kolkata, India, Piston is backed by Spark Capital, Pear VC, BOND, and different strategic traders.
Disclaimer:- This story has not been edited by SugerMint workers and supplied by the company. SugerMint is not going to be accountable in any means for the content material of this story.
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