— Booster, previously known as Booster Fuels, hired former Amazon and Uber VP Adrian Agostini as chief revenue officer. He was most recently CRO at Zume, a sustainable packaging company.
Based in Seattle, Agostini spent more than 15 years at Oracle before joining Amazon. At Uber, he was global head of sales for UberEats responsible for onboarding restaurants to the food delivery platform.
Originally launched in Seattle by former Boeing engineer Frank Mycroft, Booster relocated to the Bay Area and is headquartered in San Mateo, Calif.
Booster’s mobile fuel delivery services uses proprietary trucks to refuel individual and fleet vehicles. The company launched its service in the Seattle area two years ago and tested a consumer version earlier this year after Washington state legislators approved a law authorizing mobile fueling.
The company recently announced a partnership with Renewable Energy Group to add renewable and biodiesel fuels to its offerings. Renewable Energy Group, a biofuel producer, also made an undisclosed investment in Booster. Seattle-based firms Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, and Maveron are also investors.
The company also announced additional executive appointments based outside the Pacific Northwest:
- Jason Godley promoted to president.
- Former Impossible Foods exec Jered Newell named VP of finance.
- Amy O’Neil joined as COO in July.
- Longtime ChargePoint engineering leader Vikas Gahlan named VP of engineering.
— Seattle-based First Mode promoted Elizabeth Frank to chief scientist and Rhae Adams to chief operating officer.
Frank was most recently a senior applied planetary scientist. Adams, a First Mode board member and co-founder, was most recently GM of the Americas. Both are former employees at Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining venture that disbanded in 2018, prompting a group of employees to found First Mode.
The engineering company’s projects include a hydrogen-powered mining vehicle that could become one of the largest zero-emissions vehicles on Earth, a hydrogen-powered race truck for the Baja 1000, as well as deep space hardware for NASA.
In October, the company announced a multi-year deal and $8.5 million investment from global mining company Anglo American. First Mode now has more than 150 employees and plans to double its global employee count in 2022.
— Idaho-based online identity verification company Pipl appointed Eric Choi as chief marketing officer and Brian Piccioni as chief financial officer.
Choi was previously an executive at LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Emailage. He is based in Irvine, Calif. Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Piccioni was most recently CFO at ID.me.
Other identity verification companies in the Pacific Northwest include Vouched, Ekata, Trulioo and Auth0.
— Former Zipwhip Director of Inside Sales Kelsey Klevenberg is now head of sales and growth at Route Line, a pre-launch “adventure vehicle” startup.
He was most recently a senior director at augmented reality startup Taqtile and was head of new business development at Indian-budget hotel startup OYO for Washington and Hawaii.
— Nicholas Limas departed SpaceX for to join fusion energy company Helion as director of engineering. Helion closed a $500 million round earlier this month led by Open AI CEO Sam Altman.
Limas joined SpaceX in 2015 and was most recently manager of Starship build engineering, according to his LinkedIn profile.
— Seattle-based health care provider First Choice Health hired David Kinard as chief sales officer and Shidan Greene as VP of operations, both veterans in the health insurance sector.
