PODCAST HOUSTON FINTECH STARTUP TAPS INTO NEW TECH TO MODERNIZE 'DAILY JOURNEYS'

Before Don Frieden started his company, gas stations hadn’t innovated their payment technology
since 1997. He knew that needed to change.

Original Post | Innovationmap

Before Don Frieden started his company, gas stations hadn't innovated their payment technology since 1997. He knew that needed to change.

P97, founded in 2012, exists to use innovative technologies to simplify and energize daily journeys, Frieden explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

We think about daily journeys from the time we leave home in the morning and when we get back at the end of the day — whether it's tolling, parking, buying fuel, fast food restaurants, it's all a part of your daily journeys, and our goal is to make things a little bit simpler each day," Frieden says on the show.

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The fast-growing company — which has nearly 200 employees, most of whom work from Houston — has raised over $100 million in venture funding, according to Crunchbase, most recently closing a $40 million series C round earlier this year. This funding has supported P97 as its expanded its technology, even expanding outside of gas station payments and into other sectors, like consumer packaged goods, mobile app development, and alternative fuel sources.

Part of what P97 is focused on too is adapting new technologies, including biometrics, and applying them to the payments world. Voice-enabled payments is something in particular that Frieden is working on.

"One of the things we’re most excited about is voice enable payments through our partnership with Amazon's Alexa," he explains. "The landscape of payments at gas stations underwent this next revolution, and we're using cutting-edge speech recognition and artificial intelligence to allow drivers to pay for fuel just using their voice.

"It makes the process faster and more efficient, and is completely hands-free," he continues, explaining that biometrics are also safer compared to card transactions. "From this time I say, 'Alexa, buy gas,' six seconds later, the gas would be turned on and any loyalty rewards I have would be applied, all from the comfort of my car."

Frieden shares more about the future of P97, payments, and the energy industry as it intersects with P97 — including the future of alternative fuels — on the podcast. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

ATLANTA – October 13, 2016 – Each year, P97 attends the NACS Show and we are excited to be back this year in Atlanta, GA. Last year, we performed over 800 demonstrations of our PetroZone® Mobile Commerce and Digital Marketing platform. This year we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been up to. We always look forward to meeting with our clients, prospective clients, collaborating with strategic partners, visiting with other thought leaders in our industry… and having lots of fun.

Over the past 4 years, P97 Networks has gained recognition as our industry’s leader in mobile commerce. Our active participation in Conexxus and IFSF standards bodies along with demonstrating a number of “firsts” has positioned P97 as a pacesetter starting back with our first show in 2012 – where attendees could use voice commands from a Ford F150 truck dash unit or a smartphone tethered to a Ford Mustang to buy gas from the cars in our booth.

So what will you see this year at NACS from P97 in Booth 3731?

Official Mobile Wallet for NACS 2016 – MasterCard’s MasterPass Wallet provides a fast, convenient and secure checkout experience.
PetroZone Version 3 – Our latest white label mobile app V3 is ready for prime time – early users have raved about it and the real big news are all the advances made to the digital offers marketing platform powered by our Contextual Commerce Engine (CCE).
Latest POS Integrations – This year we will be the first to show our integration to Gilbarco’s Passport Conexxus API.
New Payment Options – Buy it Mobility (BIM) with their rapid sign up and approval ACH process will be demonstrated in our booth so come and meet the BIM team and see this cool payment process in action.
Microsoft Strategic ISV Partner – Microsoft gurus will be on hand in our booth to answer questions about demos of P97’s Retail Fuels Module powered by Microsoft’s Dynamics AX modern Point of Sale (mPOS).

Our partner Verifone just announced the availability of their Commander EPS for Mexico and P97 just announced a deployment in Puerto Rico with Verifone, so international visitors should definitely come by the Verifone (booth 3431) when P97 will be running mobile demos with Commander.

Have you gotten your NACS magazine this month?

P97 is mentioned throughout the Up to Standards article starting on page 76. And by the way, as if you haven’t noticed, food has become a big deal in C-Stores … so what are we doing about this mega-trend in our industry? Well, we are working with Gilbarco (Booth 4331) along with Xpedient Software and demonstrating our PetroZone platform integrated to enable Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) food orders. Our partner, Gilbarco is proud to be showcasing PetroZone V3 that features the QSR mobile ordering in their booth – this is something you will not want to miss.

Do you have a favorite truck stop, is your favorite gas brand Sinclair? Then you must visit Fiscal’s booth 4146 where DINOPAY (powered by PetroZone) will be demoed at the pump and in-store.

You’ll also have the opportunity next week to come by our booth #3731 and talk vision with our CEO, Don Frieden, ROI with Charlie Mohrmann, VP of Strategy and Business Development, and learn more from Steve Moses VP Operations about our Network Operations Center that monitors every hop of the mobile transaction to settlement for the retail merchant and digital receipt for the consumer.

We look forward to seeing you next week and showing you the latest innovations from P97 Networks.

Posted By

Aaron Mireles

PODCAST HOUSTON FINTECH STARTUP TAPS INTO NEW TECH TO MODERNIZE 'DAILY JOURNEYS'