Piston raises $6.1M  to expand cardless fuel payment infrastructure for fleets

Digital payment startup Piston, raised $6.1 million in seed funding led by Spark Capital, with additional backing from Pear VC and BOND. 

With this round, Piston’s total funding has reached $7.5 million, which includes a $1.4 million pre-seed round raised earlier through the PearX accelerator.

The startup plans to use the funds to hire talent in engineering, operations, and go-to-market roles, and to grow the company’s presence among fleet operators.

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“Fuel was our second-largest expense after payroll, and the most chaotic to manage. We tried every solution on the market when we ran our own fleets, and none of them worked. So, we decided to build one ourselves from scratch without the baggage of legacy card networks,” said Sekhon, Co-founder and CEO of Piston.

About Piston 

Founded by former fleet operators Vikram Sekhon and Shivam Shah, Piston offers a cardless fuel payment system where fleet drivers pay at gas stations using QR codes generated in an app. 

Each payment is linked to details like vehicle ID, location, fuel type, and time to improve tracking and reduce fraud. The system is designed to replace traditional fleet cards, which often have high fees and limited control.

Piston is based in Cupertino, California, and has a growing engineering and operations team in Kolkata, India. Since April 2024, the team there has expanded from 5 to over 25 employees.

Currently, Piston is used by over 120 fleet operators at more than 800 gas stations, processing over $20 million in annualized transactions. The company is seeing monthly volume growth of 50%. 

Its platform also attracts independent gas stations—many run under franchise models—by giving them direct access to fleet business without needing new hardware or POS system integration.

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