Silicon Valley wants to help you never pump gasoline again

Bloomberg

For Dana Dwyer, an Oracle Corp. employee and mom, a full tank of gasoline at the end of her workday is something she describes with just two words: “It’s happiness.”
Dwyer spends an hour each morning fighting through 20 miles of Bay Area traffic to get her child to school and herself to work. At night, “making one more stop to the gas station is the last thing I want to do,” she said.
That’s music to the ears of Frank Mycroft, the chief executive officer of Booster, and competitor Michael Buhr, the CEO of Filld, startups created to deliver gasoline to customer’s cars at work or home. They face obstacles in the form of gas station mini-marts, community safety concerns and the rise of electric cars. But with time-constrained US consumers paying $255 billion a year for auto fuel, the two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs say they have room to grow, and they’re getting the financial backing to prove it.
“This is not just Uber for gas, this is reinventing the entire supply chain,” said Mycroft, whose Booster service is used by Dwyer through a contract with Oracle. “We cut out the middleman and deliver gas directly to consumers,” trimming costs by buying directly from oil companies.
Booster, which focuses on partnering with large companies, also fills up cars at Facebook Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. facilities. Filld, meanwhile, is more focused on reaching individual consumers, though it has companies including Volvo and Bentley on board as corporate clients. Both fuel-startups are based in Silicon Valley.

Added Financing
On August 1, Booster announced it had secured $20 million in financing, bringing its total to $32 million. Investors include Conversion Capital, Stanford University’s StartX Fund, BADR Investments, US Venture Inc., Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, Version One, Perot Jain LP, and RRE Ventures, according to the statement.
While Filld has reported less than half that figure, spokeswoman Shateera Israel said the company will soon be announcing additional funding. Its investors include PivotNorth Capital, Javelin Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Lucas Venture Group.
The startups are vying for empty gas tanks at a time when Elon Musk’s electric-powered Model 3s are just starting to hit the streets in high volumes, threatening to eliminate the use of gas altogether. Musk predicts more than half of US auto production would be electric in 10 years, though others see the transition coming at a slower pace. Executives at five of the 25 biggest suppliers to automakers in North America have all recently downplayed expectations for electric-vehicle sales.
But that’s not the only issue facing the nascent industry, according to Patrick DeHaan, a senior analyst at GasBuddy, a firm that monitors gasoline pricing. “Profit margins are tight from gasoline,” he said. “That’s why convenient stores are taking aim at becoming more than just sellers of gas and becoming a grocery store replacement.”

Plug-In Timing
Mycroft and Buhr, though, argue that gas station convenience stores aren’t always safe. And they’re betting it will take years for the plug-ins to make a substantial dent, with 99 percent of all US cars running on that fuel in 2016. In the meantime, both executives separately said they’re preparing their companies in case gasoline does stop being the fuel of choice.
“The way our trucks are designed is to be flexible in terms of what type of fuel is delivered,” Buhr said. “It could be electric
or hydrogen.”
Booster focuses on partnering with large companies and refilling employees’ cars while they’re at work, which Mycroft said allows them to access greater market density. “This is a perk that people fall in love with,” he said.
Since June 2015, Booster has delivered more than 5 million gallons of gasoline to more than 300 campuses, located in the San Francisco Bay area and Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to data supplied by the company. Users identify the location of their car using the company’s online app, then receive a message and email receipt when their car is filled up.