Piston closes $7.5 Mn seed round led by Spark Capital

Fintech startup Piston has closed its seed round at $7.5 million. The latest $6.1 million round was led by Spark Capital, with participation from Pear VC and BOND. It follows a $1.4 million pre-seed raised via the PearX accelerator.

The proceeds will be used to expand go-to-market efforts and continue building its network across the US. Shivam Shah leads the India presence, with all engineering and parts of operations and customer success based there.

Founded by former fleet operators Vikram Sekhon and Shivam Shah, Piston replaces card-based systems with a direct payment infrastructure that connects fleet drivers and fuel stations. 

The platform uses a QR-code-based system to link payments to vehicle, time, location, and fuel data, while stations connect directly to Piston’s network without hardware upgrades or intermediaries.

Piston currently works with over 120 fleets and 800 gas stations, processing more than $20 million in annualized volume with a 50% monthly growth rate. Its headquarters is in Cupertino, with additional operations in Lehi and a 25-member engineering and operations hub in Kolkata, which is expected to double in size over the next year.