--- name: Rally title: Rally builds a pan-European fleet payments platform on Supabase description: >- Rally went from first line of code to fully licensed fintech in three months, processing live fleet payments across Europe. company_url: 'https://www.getrally.com' industry: - fintech region: Europe company_size: startup supabase_products: - database - auth - storage - realtime date: '2025-10-21' --- > We could not have built this company without Supabase. If I had to go and build all these > components myself, we wouldn't even have launched. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* ## Introduction [Rally](https://www.getrally.com) is building a financial platform for fleets across Europe, starting with a modern fuel card that lets businesses pay for everything from fuel to tolls, parking, and EV charging. Founded by former Stripe, Meta, and Booking product manager **[Thiago Peres](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thiagoperespm/)**, Rally serves medium to large European businesses with vehicles and drivers on the road, from delivery and service companies to quick-service restaurant chains. What began as a solo project quickly became a fully licensed fintech company processing live transactions across Europe, all built on Supabase. ## The challenge [Rally](https://www.getrally.com) set out to modernize fleet payments by simplifying expense management, reducing fraud, and giving fleet managers real-time visibility into spend. To achieve that, they needed a backend that was robust, secure, and compliant, but also fast to build with. As a first-time builder returning to code after a decade in product management, Peres wanted to focus on the product experience rather than setting up infrastructure. > We're dealing with financial information. You can't afford data inconsistencies or downtime. We > needed something resilient from day one. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* Building a fintech platform typically means orchestrating databases, file storage, auth systems, and messaging queues under strict compliance requirements. For a small team, that complexity could have made Rally's launch impossible. ## Choosing Supabase When Peres began experimenting with prototypes, Supabase stood out immediately. > It was very developer centric. The documentation was so good that it felt like part of the > product. Everything worked together — database, storage, functions — in a cohesive way. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* Supabase offered the power and reliability of Postgres combined with real-time APIs, Auth, Storage, and Edge Functions integrated out of the box. For a founder-CTO building solo, that cohesion made Rally possible. Peres also valued Supabase's open-source model, which ensured flexibility and long-term control. > Having seen how lock-in works elsewhere, open source gave me peace of mind. If Supabase works, > amazing, but if it didn't, I wouldn't be stuck. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* Compared to alternatives like Firebase or traditional cloud databases, Supabase offered the right balance of scalability, transparency, and developer experience with a predictable cost structure that is critical for a fast-moving fintech startup. ## The approach Rally's MVP moved from concept to production in just three months. Built entirely by Peres, the company's first banking-backed card went live to paying customers by January, just weeks after he began writing TypeScript and experimenting with Supabase. Supabase now powers Rally's entire backend: - **[Database](/database) and resilience** – Postgres serves as the source of truth for every transaction, driver, and policy rule. Features like point-in-time recovery and managed load balancing give Rally confidence in handling critical financial data. - **[Storage](/storage)** – Rally processes thousands of invoices and receipts, leveraging Supabase Storage and image transformations to manage and display documents securely. - **[Realtime](/realtime)** – Used in Rally's in-house messaging system, especially its WhatsApp-based DriverLink, which lets drivers submit receipts and mileage instantly. - **[Auth](/auth)** – Manages user access across roles, from fleet managers to finance teams. A key Rally innovation built on Supabase is Automatch, an AI-driven system that matches any WhatsApp-submitted receipt to the right transaction automatically. > Supabase made it easy to build Automatch. Storage handles receipts securely, and Postgres keeps > every workflow in sync, which is critical when you're dealing with money. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* ## The results In less than a year, Rally scaled from prototype to production fintech serving fleets across Europe without a dedicated backend team. Supabase helped Rally move fast, stay compliant, and deliver reliability to customers who depend on uninterrupted access to funds. - Three months to market from first line of code to live card transactions - Zero downtime during incidents, even during upstream AWS outages - SOC 2 compliance in one week, supported by Supabase's infrastructure and security controls > One of the reasons we got our SOC 2 very, very quickly is because we were using Supabase. When all > the requirements came on top of us, and also all the laws and regulations that we had to comply > with, it was actually not very hard. We got our SOC 2 in a week. We did the work upfront to put > the safeguards in place. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* Rally continues to expand, adding EV charging payments and analytics dashboards powered by Supabase. The next phase includes sustainability benchmarking and AI-driven insights for fleet managers. > Every time I think of a feature I'd love Supabase to have, it shows up a few months later. It's > become my database provider, period. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* ## Why Supabase? Rally's journey reflects the reasons developers and fast-moving teams choose Supabase: - **Faster time to market** – Supabase eliminates backend friction, enabling teams to build and ship faster - **Integrated suite of tools** – Developers get a complete platform including Postgres, Auth, Storage, Realtime, and more - **Developer-centric experience** – Comprehensive documentation and cohesive APIs make building intuitive - **Built for compliance** – Infrastructure and security controls help fintech companies meet regulatory requirements - **Open-source foundation** – Flexibility and control without vendor lock-in > Don't try to reinvent the wheel, especially on fintech. Security and compliance is really at the > core of every fintech. If you go with a provider like Supabase, you can leverage a lot of things > like the backups and distribution and infrastructure. That can give you a lot of peace of mind > when something goes wrong. > > *— Thiago Peres, Founder & CTO, Rally* ## **Ready to build and scale with Supabase?** Start your journey today at [www.supabase.com](/)