Clear Secure's Airport Franchise Fuels Digital Identity Growth, Potential M&A Interest

According to CNBC, Clear Secure's airport membership business is helping drive its broader digital identity platform, with the company building a verified-user database that supports reverification, higher margins and free cash flow growth. The company said Clear1 bookings rose fivefold year over year in the first quarter, revenue increased 19.7%, and it expects second-quarter revenue growth of 22.8% year over year. Clear Secure also said free cash flow more than doubled to $185.5 million in the first quarter and that its database reached 41 million members, up 31.3% from a year earlier. Clear Secure CEO Caryn Seidman Becker told CNBC in July that the company is aiming to move from verifying a person 12 times a year to 12 times a day. The report said the company is using its Clear1 product in healthcare, finance and government, and noted that Clear+ recently launched eGates, which verify identity in under five seconds using facial recognition without a human operator. It also said the company rolled out a concierge service starting at $99 per use and that Clear Secure amended its certificate of incorporation in June to remove some supermajority vote requirements that could have complicated a merger.