By: Georgette Virgo
Most great company origin stories start with one person running into a problem nobody else had bothered to fix, and deciding to fix it themselves. It is rarer, though, to find four founders, working thousands of miles apart and years apart, who each stumbled into the same realization on their own: that getting a passport or a visa should not be this hard.
That is precisely what happened to Adam Boalt and Brian LaBasco, who founded HelloGov, and to David Perez and Sergio Merino, who founded iVisa, long before any of them knew the others existed.
Years and continents apart, all four found themselves stuck in the same kind of mess: a document process that hadn’t kept pace with how often people travel or how quickly they need to travel. Now, after years of building their companies independently and proving they work at scale, HelloGov and iVisa have announced their merger, bringing passport and visa application services under one roof for American travelers.
Two Frustrating Moments, An Ocean Apart
Back in 2007, Boalt was getting ready for an international trip when he discovered his passport had already expired. With no real time to spare, he tracked down a courier who could quickly hand-carry the renewal through the process for him, so he didn’t have to handle it himself before his flight. That close call stuck with him.
He co-founded a passport expediting company that same year, which went on to become a well-established passport service and was voted number one for speed and customer service by the Wall Street Journal.
Boalt spent the better part of two decades in and around that industry, learning firsthand how travelers need assistance with their passport or visa applications, given their busy schedules and the complexity of the processes involved.
After spending roughly a decade founding and investing in other gov-tech and AI ventures, the founder returned to the passport-and-visa space specifically to build HelloGov.
“Back in 2007, I nearly missed a trip because my passport had expired and I had no idea how to fix it quickly. That was the start of my journey in this space. But what really stuck with me was seeing how many applications were held up over nuances. Even little things like a box left unchecked or two forms not quite matching up can delay a trip,” Boalt shares.
“In fact, I even did a renewal form myself, on my own, a few years ago. That’s the problem we at HelloGov want to solve. We are not just filling out the form for our clients, but also handling all the nuances and regulations, and providing support so they have an option that is both convenient and gives them confidence in the application they submit.”
Six years later and thousands of miles south, Perez and Merino ran into a version of the same problem, just wearing a different uniform. In 2013, Argentina rolled out a new e-visa requirement for American tourists, and the online process was a mess.
Merino has described the process as confusing, error-prone, and nearly impossible to navigate. This frustration became an opportunity for him to create a simpler, clearer, and more user-friendly service, leading to the introduction of iVisa.
“There was no reason an online application should put us through that much stress,” adds David Perez, co-founder of iVisa.
“We were traveling as a whole group, and the visa process ended up being the most frustrating part of planning the entire trip. That’s exactly why we built iVisa, to tell people exactly what they need, walk them through it, and be there to help when they get stuck, since plenty of our applicants are first-timers.”
That one bad experience with one country’s visa website became the spark for what would eventually grow into iVisa, a company now helping travelers from more than 200 nationalities sort out visas, e-visas, and travel authorizations across the globe.
From Personal Fixes To Real Businesses
Neither company stayed small. HelloGov has designed an AI platform trained on the nuances of all passport applications and auto-adapts to the information to ensure all forms and subforms are completed based on the applicant’s exact situation.
Through its AI system paired with human experts, HelloGov is built to catch errors in documents before they can cause delays, and its network of more than 40 State Department-registered couriers hand-carries applications to passport agencies on behalf of customers.
That courier network also solves another problem: finding a legitimate, trustworthy courier to hand off a passport application and all the personal information that comes with it.
To join the HelloGov courier network, a courier must already be registered with the U.S. Department of State as a hand-carry courier and in good standing with the government. HelloGov also does its own additional review before bringing them into the network.
Real-time tracking throughout the process means applicants always know exactly where their documents are, rather than waiting anxiously for a call or a letter.
iVisa, meanwhile, built an extensive, continuously updated database of visa requirements, covering more than 19,000 document-and-nationality combinations across more than 140 document types. The company picked up real outside recognition along the way, too, landing at No. 155 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and No. 880 on the Inc. 5000.
Boalt stresses that none of their recognition and growth happened by accident. It happened because they kept building on the same idea that got them started: modern everyday life is busy, and travelers deserve support, guidance, and the reassurance that they haven’t missed a single detail that could cost them their trip.
“We’re not here to replace the government at all. The government does an amazing job at processing these applications with remarkable reliability at an enormous scale. But the usability layer around it, such as eligibility checks before an applicant starts, error-checking before they submit, support on call for the complex cases, and real-time tracking when it’s been approved, has never existed at the same scale before,” explains Boalt.
“That’s what we’ve spent years building and refining, application by application, until our platform understands every nuance of every application. And that’s why our retail partners trust us with the applications of their customers too, because we took the time to build a platform that knows that, when it comes to applications, accuracy is the most important thing.”
A Shared Vision That Kept Growing
As demand for passports and international travel climbed to record highs (a record of 27.3 million passports in fiscal year 2025, with U.S. residents making 107.7 million international trips in 2024), and countries keep rolling out new travel authorizations, such as the UK’s ETA and the EU’s upcoming ETIAS, the gap between what travelers need and what they can easily figure out on their own keeps widening.
Both companies have recognized this gap and risen to the challenge: one built to focus on passports, the other on visas. However, this time, both services can be found on a single accessible platform.
That is what the merger of the two companies is designed to do. HelloGov became the place Americans turn to for anything passport-related, using its technology and courier network to reduce errors and wait times. iVisa became the place travelers turn for visas and travel authorizations, using its deep database to match each traveler with the exact requirements for their trip.
Together, HelloGov and iVisa aim to provide travelers with a single, reliable partner for passport and visa needs. Instead of bouncing between apps, websites, and contact numbers, a traveler can now start and finish both applications on the same platform, with the same AI technology and human team checking every form and document for accuracy before anything goes to a government office.
With this, less time is spent double-checking requirements, fewer chances to miss a detail, and far less risk that a small mistake will derail an entire trip.
For someone with a packed schedule, whether a corporate employee attending a convention, a businessman meeting his prospective partner, an athlete jumping between countries, or even just a family trying to organize one complicated holiday, that kind of accessibility turns the pre-travel paperwork into something they can hand off to a team that reviews it carefully and completely.
To be clear, travelers can absolutely handle passport and visa applications entirely on their own. But the same way people already choose to pay a little extra for convenience elsewhere, whether that’s paying for delivery instead of picking something up themselves, choosing a premium rideshare over a standard one, or upgrading a seat on a flight.
This is the kind of service travelers reach for when what they want most is convenience and one less thing to figure out on their own.
All Eyes on the Real Goal
With the merger of HelloGov and iVisa, Boalt, Perez, and Merino remained focused on all types of travelers, even as their companies scaled into the businesses they are today. For them, that focus comes down to a single measure of success, which is making sure people planning a trip do not get stuck in the same mess they once ran into.
That focus matters because the stakes are real. A missed passport renewal or a rejected visa application doesn’t just cost money. It can mean missing a family wedding, a work trip, or a vacation that took months to plan. By bringing passport and visa support into a single platform, HelloGov and iVisa give travelers one place to turn, backed by the scale, technology, and expertise both companies have spent years building.
HelloGov’s goal now is to keep growing, adding more services over time and eventually becoming a single go-to platform for pretty much any government documents an American traveler might need, not just passports and visas. It might be a big ambition, but for Boalt, it’s rooted in something small and human: founders who once nearly missed their own trips, but decided that shouldn’t happen to anyone else from America to the world.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only. Details, services, requirements, and policies may change over time. Readers are encouraged to verify information with the appropriate official sources before making decisions or taking action.
