P97, which works with fuel brands, car OS makers, and others to let users pay for gas or electric charge through app or connected car, raised a $40M Series C
The rising prices for gas continue to be a headache and stress for a lot of people around the world, but it underscores something …
Context & Ripple Effects
P97's $40M Series C lands in a stretch where the transaction is being pulled out of the pump and toward the driver's device. The funding line runs from Booster's app-based fuel delivery raise, through Coast's fleet expense-management round, to Metropolis's computer-vision parking checkout — each attacking a different piece of the drive-and-refuel experience.
First-order effects
- Fuel brands and car OS makers working with P97 can now offer pay-from-the-app or pay-from-the-dash flows for both gasoline and electric charging, removing the card-at-the-terminal step at the point of sale.
- EV charging joins gasoline as a payable surface inside connected cars, which matters as charging networks otherwise fragment across their own proprietary apps.
Second-order effects
- Booster's delivered-fuel model and Coast's fleet spend controls now sit alongside an in-car payment rail, pressuring all three to bundle rather than compete — fleets want the payment, the data, and the logistics in one ledger.
- Parking operators like those Metropolis serves face rising driver expectations that any curbside stop, whether charging or parked, should be a zero-checkout experience.
Third-order effects
- The pattern echoes Poynt's smart payment terminal play, transposed: instead of shipping merchants a terminal, the car itself becomes the payment terminal, and whoever owns that OS layer captures interchange and data across fuel, charge, and park.
- If in-car payment rails standardize, regulators and networks will eventually confront the same questions Poynt's open-terminal model raised — who certifies the device and who owns the transaction data.
The trend: Automotive commerce is consolidating around embedded, in-vehicle payment layers that treat refueling, charging, and parking as one continuous checkout.