Fleet payments platform Piston secures $6.1m seed funding

June 11, 2025

Piston, a cardless payments platform for fleets and gas stations, has secured $6.1m in its seed funding as it looks to transform the commercial fuel payments sector.

The seed funding round raised $6.1m and was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Pear VC and BOND. This follows a $1.4m pre-seed round through the PearX accelerator, bringing Piston’s total funding to $7.5m.

Founded by former fleet operators Vikram Sekhon and Shivam Shah, Piston offers a fully reengineered payment system that bypasses legacy card networks. Its platform eliminates common pain points such as card fraud and inflated retail pricing by using a secure QR code system. Each transaction is tied to a vehicle, location, time, and fuel type, while gas stations connect directly to Piston’s backend, removing the need for third-party hardware and providing real-time insights.

The fresh capital will be used to scale Piston’s go-to-market activities and expand its growing network of independent gas stations and commercial fleet partners. The company is also actively hiring across its go-to-market, product, and engineering teams. Operations are currently based in Cupertino, California, with additional hubs in Lehi, Utah and Kolkata, India.

Piston is already working with over 120 fleets across 800 gas stations, processing more than $20m in annualised volume and growing at a rate of 50% month-over-month. The platform offers fleets real-time fraud prevention and cost savings through direct station partnerships, while independent gas stations gain access to commercial demand and new business opportunities.

Piston CEO Vikram Sekhon said, “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.”

Spark Capital’s Arpan Shah said, “Piston isn’t just replacing the fleet card, it’s redefining the economics of commercial fuel payments.

“From the very beginning, Vikram and Shivam were laser-focused on a problem they knew intimately. They have built the most innovative way for both last-mile fleet owners and gas stations to transact seamlessly and transparently with each other with access to data insights that were previously impossible for them to see with any other solution. We’re thrilled to partner with them on their journey to rethink fuel payments for thousands of small businesses in the transportation industry.”