PassportParking, the industry leader in enterprise parking software, today announced it has raised $6 million in Series A funding co-led by Grotech Ventures and Relevance Capital with participation from a consortium of angel investors. Led by its flagship mobile payment solution, Passport provides municipalities, universities and private parking operators with a cloud-based platform that helps streamline the parking management process leading to efficiency and revenue gains for clients.

'Passport has achieved considerable traction by making a dramatic improvement on what already exists in the marketplace, and it is addressing a market of considerable size,' said Don Rainey, general partner, Grotech Ventures. 'They are a model of the kind of innovative company we look to get in with on the ground floor.'

As the industry's only provider to support private label, Passport clients can control their own branding and imaging which in turn enhances their customers' experience. Passport's full product suite allows its clients to work down the value chain to address historically manual processes such as issuing citations, distributing permits and managing events; significantly increasing revenue, while reducing costs. For consumers, Passport's mobile payment service provides an opportunity to pay for parking through their mobile phones and receive parking discounts from nearby retailers with integrated Facebook sign-in.

'The industry lacked tools for operators to make informed decisions, forcing providers into reactionary mode. This ultimately trickled down to frustrated parkers. We've created a compelling solution with the most complete, data-driven software system on the market,' said Bob Youakim, Passport Co-Founder. 'Grotech and Relevance are committed to our vision and bring an outstanding network of resources to help us accelerate and support our growth.'

The latest financing will be used to scale the company's sales, marketing and engineering efforts to help support rising customer demand from parking providers around the world. The company is now even better equipped to extend services and solutions to its current and future clients. Its offering has gained considerable US market share and is deployed in over 35 states with additional representation in Spain and Australia.

'Our partnership with Grotech Ventures couldn't have come at a better time. Passport's strategic positioning and superior technology have set the company up for success in the transportation industry, and our new partners bring the expertise and network to help us grow the business locally and globally,' said Charlie Youakim, Passport Co-Founder.

ABOUT PASSPORTPARKING

PassportParking is the industry's leading provider of integrated cloud-based parking solutions. The company provides the most advanced technology and equipment in an enterprise suite that allows parking providers and owners to manage parking and enforcement operations more effectively and efficiently. The integrated offerings can be seamlessly implemented on both gated and ungated properties and quickly adopted with its Parking as a Service (PaaS) model. For additional information, please visit www.passportparking.com.

ABOUT GROTECH

Founded in 1984, Grotech Ventures (www.grotech.com) is a leading early investor in high-potential technology companies. With more than $1.3B under management, Grotech seeks innovative, early-stage IT companies and continues to invest and add value throughout the growth of its portfolio companies. The firm has a strong combination of industry relationships and deep domain and operational expertise to accelerate growth. Grotech supports early-stage companies through investments starting at $500,000. General partners include Frank Adams, Chuck Cullen, Lawson DeVries, Steve Fredrick, Don Rainey and Joe Zell. The firm has offices in Virginia, Maryland and Colorado.

ABOUT RELEVANCE

At Relevance Capital (www.relevancecapital.com), we determine if a compelling business idea has the commercial relevance to make it an attractive investment opportunity. Then, we work with passionate entrepreneurs and investment partners to achieve success by forging strategies that impact existing sectors and create exciting new markets. Relevance seeks early stage/Series A opportunities within three industry silos: Cloud Based Software, Healthcare Enablement and Advanced Te