CHARLOTTE – Passport, a fast-growing startup focused on transportation and mobility issues such as parking, has three new investors and $65 million in additional capital. And it’s moving into digital payments.
Rho Capital Partners, HIG Growth Partners and ThornTree Capital Partners joined the backers of Passport, which has more than 1,000 clients for its parking and transportation platform.
The capital will be used in “growing” Passport’s platform and also expanding the system to include digital payments for parking beyond what the company describes as “traditional parking apps.”
“In the future, almost everyone in the world will live in a city, so there’s no more important challenge to work on than how people move throughout communities and transact with cities,” said Bob Youakim, a Passport co-founder and its CEO.
“We envision a world where mobility is seamless. To bring this vision to life, we are creating an open ecosystem where any entity – a connected or autonomous vehicle, a mapping app, or a parking app – can leverage our transactional infrastructure to facilitate digital parking payments.”
In a blog post, Passport explained the ecosystem:
“Passport envisions a world where paying to park isn’t its own experience, but instead a part of every experience. Today, most cities have an exclusive parking app, which provides a digital option for parkers but limits consumer choice. Passport is opening up the world of parking payments so cities, universities and other operators can support any number of apps and user experiences — not just traditional parking apps.”
