Coast – a company that offers a simple and smart way for companies in the US to manage fuel and fleet spending – announced it has raised $92 million in new funding. This funding round includes $25 million in equity capital led by existing investors, including BoxGroup, Avid Ventures, Accel, Insight Partners, Better Tomorrow Ventures, and new investor Vesey Ventures. And the company secured $67 million in committed debt capital from Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital.
Managing expenses is a major challenge for the nearly million American businesses that operate around 40 million vehicles in their commercial fleets, such as field service businesses like HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, pest control, government fleets, long-haul trucking, etc.
Over the years, a few dominant payment solutions have emerged to cater to the needs of fleet-operating companies using fuel cards. These solutions offer fleet managers the ability to establish field-specific controls, such as limiting purchases to only fuel products or monitoring expenses on a per-vehicle basis. Fleet fuel payment solutions on these specialized cards add up to over $115 billion annually in the US.
Coast’s software offers fleet managers robust policies and controls personalized for the on-the-job needs of different employees and vehicles in their fleets. For example, it authorizes or flags transactions using real-time information that employee drivers provide through their mobile devices and data from the onboard computers of company vehicles. It can block transactions when the attempted purchase is far from the current GPS location of a vehicle or pre-approve one-time extra purchases of on-the-road supplies with automated SMS workflows.
With this funding round, the Coast team will focus on product development, adding new integration partners, and supporting businesses expenses beyond fuel. The raise will also accelerate Coast’s go-to-market capability, including establishing a second site in Salt Lake City.
Coast grew its business more than fivefold in 2023 and now serves thousands of businesses, some with a handful of fleet cards and others with over 1,000. Customers who switched to Coast from other fuel card services saved an average of 9% to 10% on their fuel bills and 16 hours of monthly administrative work.
Coast’s software has been so effective in reducing abuse and waste that the company recently launched a first-of-its-kind security guarantee. The guarantee promises to cover any losses for fuel theft up to $25,000 annually for customers who enable Coast’s unique security settings.
Coast also signed partnerships with fuel brands like 7-Eleven Fleet (including Speedway), Casey’s, RaceTrac, and EG America brands (including Cumberland Farms), and retailers like Discount Tire to offer Coast customers more significant discounts while driving loyalty and repeat business for these brands. Coast also revealed that it had partnered with Visa to accelerate its fleet offering.
Coast cards are issued by Celtic Bank, under a license from Visa.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’ve been amazed by the pace of execution of Coast’s business since we first invested in the company at its founding, as well as by the scope and consistency of Daniel’s vision for financial tools for fleet operating industries. In the current market, it’s more important than ever to back companies that have shown they can achieve really great unit economics by serving a well-understood need. We were thrilled to find an opportunity to deepen our investment in Coast and continue our partnership with Daniel.”
– BoxGroup Partner Adam Rothenberg
“Coast has been an innovative leader in fleet payments, and Visa is excited to collaborate further with them to create a new generation of offerings enabled by Coast’s powerful expense management software. With Coast’s platform and Visa’s advancement in fleet, together we can provide more security, control, visibility, and reporting to all kinds of fleet operators, for all of their vehicles, both gas and electric.”
– SVP, North America Head of Visa Commercial Solutions Veronica Fernandez
“Coast is the financial platform for the future of transportation and the trades. We are building a holistic expense management and finance platform for fleet-operating businesses. We’re now well-positioned to expand our product and get it in the hands of more fleet operators and drivers.”
– Coast CEO and founder Daniel Simon
“Since initially partnering with Daniel and Coast over three years ago, our conviction in the team’s vision and execution capabilities has only deepened. This recent investment makes Coast one of the largest positions in Avid’s first fund, reflecting our excitement in Coast’s trajectory towards reshaping the industry. The team and market opportunity, combined with the company’s best-in-class unit economics, rapidly evolving product suite, and growing traction with larger fleets reinforce our confidence.”
– Avid Ventures Founder and Managing Partner Addie Lerner
“Coast provides a strong financial product backed by powerful software for fleet-operating businesses, which allows it to attract very high-quality companies as customers. SVB is excited to continue to provide the debt capital to help them serve these businesses for the long term.”
– Brian Foley, the head of warehouse lending and relationship management for SVB’s national fintech practice
