Registered Traveler (RT) service provider Verified Identity Pass yesterday said it has secured $44.4 million in venture funding from new and existing investors for use in furthering its membership growth and expanding its fast pass lanes at airport security checkpoints.
New investors include Spark Capital and Syncom Venture Partners. Ongoing investors include Lockheed Martin [LMT], General Electric‘s [GE] Security business, Baker Capital, Lehman Brothers, and Verified Identity founder Steven Brill.
Verified Identity offers RT services under the Clear brand, which is accepted at 18 airports in the United States.
“Spark’s and Syncom’s new support, along with this renewed support from our existing partners, assures that Clear will now be able to proceed to complete the Clear national network, and then expand to other non-airport venues,” Brill said in a statement.
The new capital infusion brings to $116.4 million the amount invested in Verified Identity since Brill founded the company in 2003.
A breakout of how much funding has been provided by each investor hasn’t been disclosed except an earlier investment by GE Security amounting to $18 million.
Verified Identity has gone through a growth spurt in the past eight or so months, rolling out the Clear RT service to a number of new airports such as Reagan National and Dulles International in the Washington, D.C. area, San Francisco International and others.
The company will soon open Clear lanes for RT members at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International.
So far Verified Identity has signed up over 200,000 travelers for its Clear service.
It costs between $1 million and $2 million to bring Clear to an airport, depending on its size, a Verified Identity spokeswoman told Defense Daily yesterday. That includes marketing, advertising, and the biometric-enabled enrollment and verification kiosks, she said.