Piston is a cardless payment network for commercial fleets that verifies driver identity, vehicle assignment, and telematics data in real time before authorizing fuel purchases. The platform replaces physical fuel cards with a mobile app, integrates with major telematics providers, and negotiates direct fuel discounts with station owners. Piston reports an estimated 7–8% reduction in gallons purchased through its fraud prevention and policy controls.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Commercial fleets rely on physical fuel cards and shared PINs, which are vulnerable to fraud, unauthorized use, and administrative overhead. Card-based systems lack real-time context about the driver, vehicle, location, or policy compliance, allowing suspicious purchases to go through before they can be stopped. Managing cards, tracking lost plastic, and reconciling transactions consumes significant time and money for fleet operators.
Solution
Piston provides a cardless payment network that connects every driver, vehicle, pump, and fleet policy before fuel flows. The mobile app verifies driver identity, device, vehicle assignment, tank capacity, fuel type, GPS proximity, and custom fleet rules in real time, then authorizes the pump only if all conditions are met. Piston Guard, a 24/7 AI agent, reviews every transaction against live context and historical behavior, flagging anomalies for quick review. The platform also negotiates fuel discounts directly with station owners along fleet routes, and its natural-language analytics agent lets managers query fleet data conversationally instead of reconciling spreadsheets.
Target Audience
Primary customers are commercial fleet operators, including last-mile delivery companies, trade fleets, and growing businesses that need to control fuel spend, prevent fraud, and reduce administrative burden across their driver teams.
Features
- 100% cardless fueling through a mobile app with real-time verification of driver, device, vehicle, and location
- Custom fleet policies covering assigned routes, shift-hour windows, tank-capacity limits, fuel-type restrictions, and telematics-based vehicle proximity
- Piston Guard, a 24/7 AI agent that reviews every transaction and flags unusual driver, vehicle, location, spend, or fueling behavior
- Piston Agent, a natural-language analytics tool that answers questions about transactions, drivers, vehicles, and spend in plain language
- Direct negotiations with gas station owners to secure industry-leading fuel discounts along fleet routes
- Instant driver onboarding and removal in seconds without ordering or tracking physical cards
- Major telematics integrations that enable vehicle proximity checks and route-aware policy enforcement