A Boston company that gives drivers a contactless payment option at the gas station has raised a seed funding round.
PayByCar Inc. announced a $4 million round this morning. The company offers pay-by-text options at 27 gas stations across Massachusetts and hopes to expand into more stations and other industries with the new investment.
“There’s a lot of moving pieces that we need to get to before stepping on the gas,” said Anand Raman, the co-founder, president and chief operating officer of PayByCar. “We are laying the foundation, and this year is going to be a lot of laying those building blocks for us.”
PayByCar says its service takes away the need to pull out a wallet, enter a gas station or touch a gas pump keypad.
Drivers can register for PayByCar’s services with a credit card on the company’s website, Raman said. Their account is then linked to their E-ZPass transponder or a free PayByCar windshield sticker, which is detected by a sensor as drivers pull into a gas station. A text to their phone will ask drivers to confirm the pump they are using.
Once these authentications are complete, Raman said, the pump will turn on before the driver can get out of the car and walk over to it. When they finish pumping and place the handle back on the machine, the transaction will be completed before they get back in the car.
Pay by text
The company said this process cuts the transaction time in half and provides physical distancing from others and potentially unclean surfaces.
“We are in the business of making the transaction simple,” Raman said. “We don’t want to invent the app…Let’s use the app that’s already on everybody’s phone, which is text message.”
PayByCar was founded in 2017 and kicked off its first gas station partnerships in 2019. It has around 10 full-time employees, Raman said. PayByCar has partnered with 27 Alltown Mobil locations in Massachusetts, which pay the company a monthly fee to use its service. Raman said around 11,000 drivers have signed up for PayByCar.
This new round of funding will help PayByCar expand its gas station partnerships and bring its services to other industries. Raman said the company is interested in managing operations or payments for parking areas, quick-serve restaurants and automotive fleets. In 2022 the company aims to serve 30 to 50 more locations, including fueling stations and locations in these new industries.
To match this growth, PayByCar is building out its team this year in areas like engineering, sales and customer service.
“As of now we are small. I always joke about it — like little kids playing soccer, wherever there’s a ball everybody’s trying to kick it,” Raman said. “Now we need position players. We need someone to play forward, someone to play midfield, someone to play defense.”
