Coast Partners With Visa to Expand Financial Tools & Software for Modern Business Fleets
NEW YORK (March 21, 2024) — Coast, which offers a way for companies in the United States to manage fuel and fleet spending, has raised $92 million in new funding. The round includes $25 million in equity capital led by existing investors, including BoxGroup, Avid Ventures, Accel, Insight Partners and Better Tomorrow Ventures, as well as new investor Vesey Ventures. The company also secured $67 million in committed debt capital from Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital.
For the nearly one million American businesses that collectively operate around 40 million vehicles in their commercial fleets — including field service businesses like HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, pest control, construction, government fleets and long-haul trucking — managing expenses in the field is a major challenge. Over the decades, a handful of now very large incumbent payment solutions have emerged to serve fleet-operating companies’ needs with fuel cards, to allow fleet managers to set field-specific controls, like restricting purchases to only fuel products, or tracking expenses on a per-vehicle basis. The fleet fuel payments on these specialized cards add up to a staggering $120 billion annually in the U.S.
Coast’s software gives fleet managers policies and controls that they can tailor to the on-the-job needs of different employees and vehicles in their fleets. It uses real-time information that employee drivers provide through their phones, as well as data from the onboard computers of company vehicles, to authorize or flag transactions. For example, the fleet manager of a commercial construction HVAC company could receive an alert if a driver purchased unleaded gas when driving a company diesel vehicle, indicating potential abuse; automatically block a transaction when the attempted purchase is far from the current GPS location of the vehicle; or pre-approve a one-time extra purchase of on-the-road supplies at Home Depot with a simple, automated SMS workflow.
The company has grown its business more than fivefold in 2023, and it now serves thousands of businesses, some with just a handful of fleet cards and others with over 1,000. Surveyed customers saved an average of 9-10% on their fuel bill and 16 hours of monthly administrative work when switching to Coast from another fuel card or payment method.
Coast software recently rolled out a security guarantee, promising to cover any losses for fuel theft up to $25,000 annually for customers that enable Coast’s security settings.
Coast also announced that it had entered into a relationship with Visa, a world leader in digital payments, to accelerate its fleet offering.
Coast cards are issued by Celtic Bank, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc.
With the new funding, the Coast team will focus on product development, adding new integration partners as well as supporting businesses expenses beyond fuel. The raise will also accelerate Coast’s go-to-market capability, including the establishment of a second site in Salt Lake City.
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