Piston, a United States headquartered payments startup with an engineering center in Kolkata, has closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by FPV Ventures with participation from Spark Capital and Pear VC. The company operates a cardless fuel payments network that connects commercial fleets with gas stations and convenience stores across the United States. The investment positions Piston to expand its network, strengthen its technology, and move closer to eliminating physical fuel cards for commercial drivers.
Series A Backing and Investor Confidence
The Series A round was led by FPV Ventures, with existing investors Spark Capital and Pear VC also participating. The capital will be used to accelerate the national build out of Piston's payments network, advance product development, and add senior leaders across key areas of the business. This backing reflects confidence in a model that replaces legacy card rails with a dedicated business to business fuel payment network.
Growth and Network Momentum
Piston enters this next phase after a year of sharp expansion. Payment volume increased 8x year over year, while the company's merchant network grew 40x and customer retention remained at 98 percent. Piston is now deployed at more than 2,000 stations across 48 states, with point of sale integrations certified and live across systems covering more than 95 percent of United States merchant fuel sites.
How the Cardless Network Works
Piston's platform authorizes every fuel purchase for a specific driver and vehicle at the point of sale rather than relying on physical payment cards. Fleet owners receive real time visibility into fuel spending as it happens and no longer have to issue or manage plastic cards. Merchants gain direct access to commercial fuel demand, lower transaction costs, and the opportunity to capture in store purchases that accompany repeat fleet traffic.
AI Products and Fraud Controls
Piston is extending its real time controls with two artificial intelligence products. Piston Guard evaluates each transaction for anomalies and can flag or block suspected fraudulent spending before it is completed. The Piston Analytics Agent allows fleet owners to understand spending data and uncover patterns without spending hours on manual analysis.
Kolkata Engineering Center
Alongside its United States expansion, Piston's presence in India has grown meaningfully. The Kolkata office opened in April 2023 with five team members and has become a hub of more than twenty five people, playing a central role in building and scaling the company's technology infrastructure. As Piston extends its payments network nationally, the Kolkata engineering team will remain central to the product and technology roadmap.
Leadership Perspectives
Chief Executive Officer Vikram Sekhon said commercial fuel still runs on payment technology built for another era. He described fleet fuel fraud as a physical card problem disguised as a detection issue and said the cardless model authorizes each purchase for a specific driver and vehicle. Nikunj Kothari, Partner at FPV Ventures, added that fuel is one of America's largest business to business spend categories and that Piston moves money over its own rails without card networks or intermediaries.
Expansion Plans and Broader Ambitions
Over the next eighteen months, the company aims to establish coverage across every region of the United States. This national build out will also lay the groundwork for Piston to move beyond fuel into broader logistics payments infrastructure. The new capital will support senior hiring and product expansion as the company works toward that goal.
Piston's Series A round reflects growing demand for modern payments infrastructure in commercial fuel. The company's cardless model addresses fraud, administrative burden, and cost while giving merchants a direct channel to fleet customers. With new capital and a clear national expansion plan, Piston is positioned to become a broader logistics payments network in the United States.