Coast Raises $92 Million to Improve Fleet Management Payments
Fuel and fleet spending management firm Coast has raised $92 million in new capital.
The funding round includes $25 million in equity capital from investors such as BoxGroup, Avid Ventures, Accel, Insight Partners, and Better Tomorrow Ventures, as well as newcomer Vesey Ventures, Coast said in a Thursday (March 21) news release.
Additionally, $67 million in committed debt capital was secured from Silicon Valley Bank and TriplePoint Capital, per the release.
The U.S. has nearly a million businesses operating around 40 million commercial vehicles, and managing expenses remains a challenge, the company said. With the new funding, Coast said it aims to improve fleet payments by leveraging mobile technology and state-of-the-art vehicle data.
Coast’s software provides customizable policies and controls for fleet managers, using real-time information from drivers’ phones and vehicle onboard computers to authorize or flag transactions.
“Coast is the financial platform for the future of transportation and the trades,” CEO Daniel Simon said in a statement. “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 also said in the release that it had partnered with Visa to accelerate its fleet offering.
“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,” said Senior Vice President, North America Head of Visa Commercial Solutions Veronica Fernandez in a statement.
“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,” Fernandez added.
The funding round comes amid a bout of optimism in the fleet management industry, as PYMNTS Intelligence has found.
Ninety-six percent of fleet and mobility companies are planning to use some form of working capital solution in the coming year, a 14% increase relative to last year, according to “2023-2024 Growth Corporates Working Capital Index: Europe Edition,” a PYMNTS Intelligence study commissioned by Visa.
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