Passport (company)

Passport

Type	Private
Industry	Web and mobile payments software
Founded	May 2010
Founder	Bob Youakim Charlie Youakim
Headquarters	Charlotte, NC
Website	www.passportinc.com

Passport is a Wilmington, DE headquartered company with offices in Charlotte, NC. ^[1] Passport provides an enterprise software platform for cities, transit agencies, universities, and private operators in the parking and transportation industries throughout the US and Canada.^[2] Passport’s primary applications include mobile payments for parking and mobile ticketing for transit operations.^[3] Passport pairs with municipalities and private operators to create convenient technical solutions to allow users to park, ride, and pay via a mobile phone in areas that may have previously been paid for only by cash or hardware stations.^[4][5][6]

History

The Beginning of the Parking Platform

Passport was founded in May 2010 by cousins Bob and Charlie Youakim after discussing issues they both had experienced with the parking industry’s payment equipment and processes.^[7] The initial goal of the company was to serve as a parking operator and create new parking hardware for the industry. However, they changed their model to providing software to the parking operator given the industry’s trend towards mobile applications.^[8] At this time, Passport adjusted their business model from a primarily B2C focus to a B2B/B2G focus with parking operators and municipalities as their primary customer.^[9]

Passport was able to launch their first Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and app-based (Web, iOS, Android) mobile payment application on NCDOT property located in downtown Charlotte, NC, allowing the company to beta test their applications under the management name of “Alliance Parking” before releasing the finished product to the market.^[10] After a year of development efforts and product testing, Passport presented the official company launch in February 2012 at Startup Riot in Atlanta, GA.^[11]

Passport’s first customer came in June 2012 through ParkSelect, a private operator in Wilmington, NC. Soon after the company’s first deal, Passport won a contract to build mobile payments for parking for the City of Asheville, NC.^[12][13]

Private Label

In January 2013, Passport signed a deal with the City of Omaha, NE to build a mobile payments application for parking. During their meetings with the city managers, Passport discovered that there was demand for city-branded municipal parking applications. This idea gave way to the concept of customizable white-label mobile payments applications, dubbed “Private Label” applications. Omaha’s application, titled, “ParkOmaha” was created and is the first White Label parking application to be implemented in the US.^[14][15]

In November 2013, Passport signed and closed a Private Label deal with the City of Chicago to create “Park Chicago”. Following in 2014, Passport signed deals with cities of Toronto,^[16] ON, Boston,^[17] MA, Louisville, KY, and Tucson, AZ.^[18][19]

Funding

Early funding for the company started with self-funding, family loans, and personal investments totalling $1.5 MM. In December 2013, Passport received a $6MM Series A round of funding through Relevance Capital and Grotech Ventures.

In 2016, Passport completed its Series B round of $8MM, led by MK Capital and joined by previous investors Relevance Capital and Grotech Ventures. The funding round was reported by TechCrunch.

Transit

Passport provides an enterprise software platform for transit agencies, offering a back-end management portal for agencies. This suite is combined with a customer facing mobile ticketing application that features the ability to plan, track, and pay for your trip.

In the summer of 2014, Passport met with the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority in Columbia, SC and agreed upon a pilot transit platform for their bus lines line titled, “The COMET”. The city later agreed to expand the initial pilot into an official rollout, marking the beginning of Passport’s transit products.^[20]

After Passport’s initial deal with the City of Tucson for Private Label mobile payments for parking, Tucson later requested that Passport include the city’s transit operations within the same platform.^[21] This gave way to the current concept of multi-modal urban mobility applications.^[22][23]

Passport continues to grow its client list, providing mobile ticketing for Sacramento, Jacksonville, Cleveland, and Cincinnati.

Parking Enforcement

Passport supports parking operations with a real-time operational platform for managing parking citations. This is combined with a mobile component for enforcement officers in the field that communicates to the management portal, providing analytics and support in the cloud. Passport also supports in-app payments for parking tickets, now offering multiple options to resolve citations for customers. Clients include the City of New Haven, Salt Lake City, Sheperdstown, WV, Omaha Wisoncsin-Dells, and Wofford College

Business Model

Passport focuses on its primary client, the cities, universities, transit agencies, and private operators it provides enterprise software. This results in a combined B2G, B2B, and B2C approach due to both the influence that municipality government and private operators’ have on which technologies are used in each area along with the significance of increased user adoption.^[24] Customers within the agencies Passport serve download mobile applications to use for parking, transit, permits, and to pay parking tickets. Passport's mobile applications are represented in cities such as Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Toronto, and Louisville.

Office & Location

Passport established an office in June 2014 in the historic South End neighborhood of Charlotte, NC. The company operates out of the renovated Textile Mill Supply Company Building on Mint Street in an 8,000 sq. ft. loft-style office, half a mile from Bank of America Stadium.^[25]

References