CHARLOTTE – Passport, a transportation software and payments company, has raised $90 million in order to pursue growth, according to a statement from the company.

The company named a new CEO, David Evans, in April.  Evans had been hired in January 2021 as president, who noted at the time that the Passport team was “ready to take on the challenge of driving further development of our digital platform.”

The investment comes from Sixth Street Growth, a fund of Sixth Street, which is a firm that has invested in AvidXchange, Airbnb, and MDLive.

Passport’s technology is used by more than 1,000 cities, universities, and agencies, to assist cities in managing parking and other mobility infrastructure, and as of April 2021, had processed more than $2 billion in mobility-related payments since its founding a decade ago.

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The new funding from Sixth Street Growth is tagged for further growth, the company said, specifically targeting an area of growth related to how cities could re-open their streets as some restrictions or mandates are lifted with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and from local, state, and federal governments.

The plan, according to the company’s statement, is to deploy the capital to “further improve the company’s digital platform infrastructure to help cities maximize the use of curb space in a way that is safe, equitable and creates positive community engagement.”

The company had already been experiencing growth.  It was named to the Inc. 5000 list as a fastest-growing company in 2020, and in the press statement announcing the change in leadership–founder and former CEO Bob Youakim is now the chairman of the company’s board of directors–the company stated that its three-year growth rate was 457 percent.

“Passport enables cities to replace capital-intensive physical installations with effective, easy-to-use mobile technology solutions and we are pleased to partner with them as they continue to transform urban mobility,” said Bo Stanley, Partner and Co-Head of Sixth Street Growth.

The company raised $65 million in a Series D funding round at the end of 2019, and planned to use that funding to grow the company’s platform as well.

Charlotte mobility tech startup Passport raises $65M, plans transportation ‘ecosystem’