Cape, a U.S. privacy-focused mobile carrier, has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round. The round was co-led by Bain Capital Ventures and IVP, with participation from new investors 01 Advisors, 137 Ventures, Definition, and Fifth Down Capital. The company has now raised $191 million in total.
The round follows Cape's announcement that its service is now available nationwide across the United States.
The U.S. mobile market has long been dominated by three major carriers, and their networks carry nearly all cell phone traffic in the country. That concentration has come with serious consequences. In 2024, a cyberattack known as "Salt Typhoon" compromised major carrier infrastructure and reportedly affected the phones of senior political figures including Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. The same year, a separate breach exposed the call records of nearly one in three Americans. The major carriers have also faced $200 million in FCC fines for selling customers' location data without proper consent.
Cape operates as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which means it leases access to physical towers from traditional carriers. But that's where the similarity ends. Unlike other MVNOs, Cape has built its own mobile core and SIM technology from scratch. This gives it the ability to implement privacy features that standard carriers simply don't offer.
One example is Identifier Rotation, which changes SIM ID numbers daily to make persistent tracking much harder. Another is Secondary Numbers, which allows a user to run multiple phone numbers from a single SIM. These aren't add-ons or app-level features. They are built into the network itself.
"Cell phone networks track everywhere you go, every app you use, every person you call or text," said John Doyle, CEO of Cape. "So when they're compromised, it leads to some of the most sweeping and damaging violations of both national security and individual privacy in history. There's no app, no add-on that fixes problems inherent in the underlying cellular network itself, so we've redesigned a telco from scratch to close this gap."
Cape will use the new capital to accelerate adoption across three segments: U.S. government agencies, enterprise clients, and privacy-conscious consumers. The company also plans to invest in further research and development, continuing its work with partners such as the Air Force Research Laboratory and the University of Maryland.
Since its founding in 2022, Cape's user base has included national security professionals, journalists, activists, and private individuals who want more control over their communications. The Series C positions the company to scale that reach significantly.
Cape was founded in 2022 with a mission to make mobile communication private, secure, and resilient. The company has built its own carrier infrastructure rather than relying on the software stacks of existing operators, which it argues is the only way to address security vulnerabilities at the network level.
Cape's total funding now stands at $191 million. Prior investors include A*, Andreessen Horowitz, Costanoa Ventures, ex/ante, Point72 Ventures, Forward Deployed VC, Karman Ventures, and XYZ Ventures, alongside the new participants in this round.
"The mobile carrier market has been effectively frozen for decades, dominated by a small number of incumbents running legacy infrastructure," said Saanya Ojha, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures. "Cape is the first company we've seen that is willing to challenge that foundation - not as a reseller, but as a true infrastructure builder. By operating its own mobile core and embedding privacy at the network layer, Cape is building the inevitable future of secure mobile infrastructure."
"It's rare to see a product with such universal value across government, enterprise, and consumer," said Somesh Dash, General Partner at IVP. "This is an investment in deep infrastructure that secures the connectivity backbone of our mobile economy and way of life. By building a new telco with its own software stack, rather than just reselling the service of incumbents, Cape is the only credible alternative to the traditional carriers."
