Across the country, cities are being asked to do more with less. Inflation has stretched municipal budgets, federal relief funds are winding down, and residents expect digital experiences that match the private sector. For city leaders, that tension has become existential: how to modernize essential infrastructure, from transportation to payments to public space management, without expanding overhead or risk.

This is where Passport comes in.

For more than a decade, Passport has helped cities thrive through better parking and curb management technology. Their software solutions have grown into a comprehensive platform for managing and monetizing the curb, integrating parking, permits, enforcement, and now, payments, into a single system of record. The launch of Passport Payments marks the next phase of that journey, one that unifies not just curb operations but city finances themselves.

A Partner in the Digital Transformation of Cities

We first partnered with Passport in 2017, when the company was a Charlotte startup already thriving across its point solutions. It was also deep in the trenches of codifying a true platform that would become the backbone of city and county transportation departments, taking on the decidedly unglamorous challenge of digitizing paid parking, enforcement, and permitting. From the beginning, what stood out was not just the technology but the empathy and customer love. Passport’s deep understanding of how cities work shaped its approach. At a time when “disruption” was the reflexive ambition of nearly every startup, Passport took a different path. The company never set out to upend the way government works, but to work alongside their customers by earning trust through reliability, compliance and a genuine respect for the public process.

Over the ensuing years, as cities’ digital ambitions expanded, Passport evolved with them. It became clear that the curb was a microcosm of a broader problem: fragmented systems that trapped data, slowed decision-making and obscured accountability. Passport’s platform began knitting these pieces together, giving city operators visibility across departments and revenue streams. That unified view has allowed cities to make better policy decisions, streamline operations and, crucially, improve transparency with taxpayers.

The Logic of Embedded Payments

The next logical step was the ledger. Every transaction that happens at the curb—parking, permitting, citations—is a payment event. Yet most municipal payment infrastructure was built for retail or e-commerce, not for the regulatory and compliance demands of government. The result was inefficiency, reconciliation headaches and higher fees.

Passport Payments addresses that head-on. Purpose-built for municipal use, it allows cities to accept, track and reconcile payments across departments in one secure, compliant system. It offers the reliability of a global payments network with the configurability and transparency cities require. Today, the platform supports more than 800 cities and operators, and has processed over $4 billion in payments.

A Company Re-Energized

While Passport’s technology story is impressive, its organizational journey is just as notable. Over the last few years, the company has sharpened its focus, rebuilt its leadership team, and re-centered on what it does best: helping cities operate efficiently and transparently.

Under CEO Khristian Gutierrez, one of Passport’s original co-founders, the company has rediscovered its entrepreneurial energy while maturing into an enterprise-grade partner for public agencies. This phase feels less like a pivot and more like a return to form. They’re delivering on the same mission, now executed with greater clarity and scale.

What Comes Next

At Bain Capital Ventures, we have had the privilege of partnering with Passport since 2017 and supporting its continued evolution. What began as a bet on digital parking has become a high conviction investment in the future of modern municipal infrastructure.

Cities are entering a decisive chapter: fiscal pressure on one side, technological opportunity on the other. Passport sits squarely at that intersection, helping local governments convert data into insight, inefficiency into revenue, and public trust into measurable outcomes.

We are proud of the company’s progress, inspired by its resilience, and energized by what is ahead.