There’s truly an app for everything these days: posting photos (Instagram), building theme parks (Roller Coaster Tycoon), drowning in sorrow (Twitter), making your face look weird (FaceApp), a Tinder but for cuddling (Cuddlr), a map to mark where you pooped (Places I’ve Pooped), and pretty much anything else you can think of
Now, there’s even one for rich people who don’t want to pump their own gas!
It’s called laziness! Actually, it’s called ‘Booster’ and it just received $20 million in series B funding. Overall, the startup has raised $32 million, according to TechCrunch.
The goal with this app is to have people who don’t want to pump their own gas provided with the convenience of someone pumping their gas for them at their office. So, how would this work exactly? Well Booster has come up with the idea of partnering with largers employers and sending gas trucks to the office parking lots. Once the truck arrives, they would go around filling everyone’s cars with gas.
According to Booster, it believes this would save users time (their cars would get filled up at work rather than at a gas station) and money (around ten cents less per gallon).
CEO Frank Mycroft explained to TechCrunch part of the reasoning behind this app is to reinvent filling up one’s tank in the 21st century and because going to a gas station is the “least fun thing.”
Three companies have already partnered with Booster, Mycroft said, and none of the three are surprising: Cisco, Oracle, and Facebook. What’s unique here is the companies are simply partnering up with Booster as a convenience for their employees. Those three companies don’t pay Booster anything on top of what the employees pay Booster for their gas.
To make sure the trucks come, users sign up for Booster, schedule a fill-up while at work, and then leave their gas caps open. If all goes well, employees will walk out of the office to find their gas caps closed and tanks full.
The process does seem a little dangerous. For one, leaving your gas cap open makes it easier for people to come and siphon your gas. It also leaves your car open to people potentially messing with your gas cap/tank/car. Then again, places like Cisco, Oracle, and Facebook probably have strong security in their parking lots to protect this from happening.
There are already apps just like this, such as Purple or WeFuel TechCrunch points out. However, Booster is the first to focus on private companies.
“(Booster has) a combination of unparalleled technology innovation, distribution efficiency, and regulatory expertise,” Christian Lawless, managing partner at Conversion Capital who invested, said.
There really is an app for everything these days.
