Fillip Fleet: Fueling Canadian businesses
Fillip Fleet
Anyone running a company with a vehicle fleet knows how arduous it can be to ensure drivers can fill up their tanks on the go, wherever and whenever. Typically, multiple company credit cards are issued or drivers have to pay out of pocket and submit receipts for reimbursement. All of this creates additional work – and frustrated drivers. Corporations with large fleets have systems in place to handle the busy work, but what can smaller companies with just a few vehicles do?
Calgarian serial-entrepreneur Alice Reimer has the solution: Fillip Fleet, a digital wallet app that turns any employee’s smartphone into a gas card.
“Seventy-one per cent of US-based small businesses have five or fewer vehicles,” said Reimer. “By using Fillip, small businesses can benefit from all of the same money-saving features available to standard fleet management card holders.”
HOW IT WORKS
After setting up an account, companies download the free Fillip app and text employees a custom link to do the same. Drivers can then use their cellphone to pay for gas at any station in Canada where Visa* is accepted. Used in the same way as other online payment apps, the Fillip app is safe, secure and convenient. It provides drivers peace of mind, knowing that they can fuel up quickly and without the hassle of paperwork.
The app also lets businesses distribute the equivalent of gas cards, including to non-traditional groups like contract drivers and associations and for employee programs. Accounting is simplified since the app is easily loadable with funds, including the ability to photograph receipts to keep digital records.
Business owners receive real-time notifications of their team’s purchases and gain complete visibility into spending with monthly reporting. The Fillip app provides a level of transparency that drivers and fleet operators have been looking for years to achieve.
Finally, the Fillip app removes the need to carry physical cards for different retailers, or to change routes to accommodate specific fuel stations.
ON THE FAST TRACK
Reimer and her team launched Fillip in October 2021 and have already signed up more than 200 businesses. The company is growing – fast – with 30 per cent growth per month. After two initial rounds of funding, Fillip is now in its third round and gaining market traction and media attention. It is now accepted at 360 Husky retail fuel stations across Canada; at Southern Alberta Gas King locations; and at Canco Petroleum.
Fillip recently joined Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program, speeding up the process of integrating with Visa and its enablement partners, and allowing Fillip to leverage the reach, capabilities and security of VisaNet, Visa’s global payment network.
CREATING AN ECOSYSTEM
Reimer’s career as an entrepreneur in many ways is the story of the Calgary tech ecosystem. Born and raised in Calgary and educated at the University of Calgary, Reimer launched her first tech company, Evoco, in 1999 when she was just 26. Evoco was a software as a service (SaaS) construction management platform that allowed big-box retailers to share large-scale architectural plans and drawings online.
To understand how remarkable this was, recall that the cloud hadn’t been invented yet. Evoco eventually grew to a Calgary workforce of 75 employees and boasted a client list that included Walmart, The Home Depot, Lowes, and Luxottica. Evoco was subsequently acquired by Texas-based Accruent, a retail-real-estate management firm.
Evoco introduced Reimer to her two superpowers: building and leading teams and mentoring other entrepreneurs. Reimer played an active role in forming the rich array of support that exists for entrepreneurs in Calgary today. She was named one of Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneurs by PROFIT magazine and one of Alberta’s 50 Most Influential People.
Reimer was introduced to mentorship and innovation in 2009 when she became one of the original founding members of the A100, a Calgary non-profit that helps build the next generation of Alberta tech entrepreneurs. Since then, the tech ecosystem of funders, mentors, entrepreneurs and disrupters has steadily grown to a robust financial and entrepreneurial engine that supports hundreds of people, companies and ideas every year.
In 2019, Reimer co-founded The51, a platform where investors and entrepreneurs can access women-led capital for women-led businesses. The51’s goal is to build the Financial Feminist™ economy. The51 is affiliated with Movement51, which addresses financial feminism inequalities that affect women and gender-diverse people across Canada and hosts the Financial Feminism Investing Lab (FFIL), offered in partnership with the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business. This six-week virtual program includes an introduction to the start-up ecosystem, with a focus on early-stage investor education. FFIL helps participants activate their capital, giving them the tools, capability and confidence they need to drive innovation and advance the economy, empowering and nurturing a traditionally underserved sector of the investment and technology growth markets.
Reimer and her co-founders intend to make Canada a world leader in female-powered capital and to unlock the potential of a broad class of entrepreneurs and investors.
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION LAB - ROCKIES
Reimer spent the past five years as the Site Lead of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL - Rockies), out of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary. CDL-Rockies brings together experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and subject matter experts to expedite early-stage science- and technology-focused companies. CDL provides expert advice, funding opportunities, research analysis and business development support, connecting people with entrepreneurial knowledge to those with ideas in order to build capital and companies and fuel Calgary’s economic engine.
“CDL provides a competitive advantage and the ability to grow and develop a talent community. It has also allowed me to really contribute to the tech ecosystem in a meaningful way,” said Reimer.
CDL-Rockies’ goal is to create an additional 2,334 start-ups, with 1,000 core tech companies by 2030. As of January 2022, CDL-Rockies has created $1.3 billion in equity value, $535 million of which has been created by Alberta-based companies. The CDL community is a key contributor to the vision of the community-created economic strategy expressed in Calgary in the New Economy: to be the destination of choice for the world’s best entrepreneurs who embrace innovation to solve global challenges and to create shared prosperity and opportunities for all.
A CITY OF REMARKABLE TALENT
“Calgarians understand the remarkable talent that can be found in Calgary,” Reimer enthuses. “Calgary is the very best place to live, work, and play in Canada, hands down,” she adds. “You can raise a family, build a company, and make real change here.”
“Calgary is the very best place to live, work and play in Canada, hands down. You can raise a family, build a company and make real change here.”
Reimer appreciates having access to some of the best and brightest minds here as well. “Calgary has a highly educated workforce, but it’s more than that. Calgarians have a curious mindset and just love to push innovation to see where it can go,” she says.
If there were anything Reimer would change, it would be to produce “farm teams” of tech entrepreneurs and professionals just out of school. Such a system would allow younger generations to learn how to build a company or disruptive technology in an ecosystem of mentorship. “We need more Chief Technology Officers investing in nascent tech talent,” Reimer says.
WHAT’S NEXT
Fillip has big plans for the future. First, it is looking to double the Fillip team to 30 people this year. It also plans to expand into the US market and is busy building the partnerships necessary to become the payment platform for the fleet market.
The company hopes to extend its product offerings to include maintenance, parts and accessories, and parking fees for business fleets.
“We have a competitive advantage here in Calgary. We must be able to grow and develop our talent community in order for them to fully contribute in a meaningful way,” adds Reimer. “I’ve had many mentors in Calgary’s tech community that surrounds us and we have solid relationships with other tech companies in our tech ecosystem. There is creative talent everywhere we look.”
Are you ready to make moves in Calgary’s tech scene, working with forward-thinking companies like Fillip Fleet? Head to our Live Tech Love Life careers page and see what opportunities might be out there for you.
*The Fillip Visa Prepaid Card is issued by Peoples Trust Company pursuant to licence by Visa Int. *Visa Int./Peoples Trust Company, Licensed User.
Le Fillip carte prépayée Visa est émise par la Compagnie de Fiducie Peoples, en vertu d’une licence de Visa Int. *Visa Int. /La Compagnie de Fiducie Peoples, utilisée sous licence.