Cape dials up $61M from a16z and extra for cellular service that does not use private information

AT&T’s latest mega customer data breach — 74 million accounts affected — laid naked how a lot information carriers have on their customers, and likewise that the info is there for the hacking. On Thursday, a startup known as Cape — primarily based out of Washington, D.C., and based by a former government from Palantir — is asserting $61 million in funding to construct what it claims can be a way more safe strategy: It gained’t have the ability to leak your title, tackle, Social Safety quantity or location as a result of it by no means asks for these within the first place.

“You can’t leak or sell what you don’t have,” in line with the company’s website. “We ask for the minimal amount of personal information and store sensitive credentials locally on your device, not on our network. That’s privacy by design.”

The funding is notable partly as a result of Cape’s attraction to customers shouldn’t be but confirmed. The corporate solely got here out of stealth 4 months in the past, and it has but to launch a business service for customers. That’s because of are available in June, CEO and founder John Doyle stated in an interview. It has one pilot undertaking in operation, deploying a few of its tech with the U.S. authorities, securing communications on Guam.

The $61 million it introduced Thursday is an aggregation throughout three rounds: a seed and Sequence A of $21 million (raised when it was nonetheless in stealth mode as an organization known as Private Tech) and a Sequence B of $40 million. The newest spherical is being co-led by A-Star and a16z, with XYZ Ventures, ex/ante, Costanoa Ventures, Point72 Ventures, Ahead Deployed VC and Karman Ventures additionally taking part. Cape shouldn’t be disclosing its valuation.

Doyle attracted that investor consideration partly as a result of his previous roles have included practically 9 years of working for Palantir as the pinnacle of its nationwide safety enterprise. Previous to that, he was a particular forces sergeant within the U.S. Military.

These jobs uncovered him to customers (like authorities departments) who handled the safety of non-public info and privateness round information utilization as important. However, extra entrepreneurially, additionally they acquired him desirous about customers.

With the large focus that information privateness and safety have right this moment within the public consciousness — usually due to the various bad-news tales we hear about information breaches, the encroaching actions of social networks and many questions on nationwide safety and digital networks — there’s a clear alternative to construct instruments like these for abnormal individuals, too, even when it looks like that is perhaps unimaginable lately.

“It’s actually one of the reasons I started the company,” he advised TechCrunch. “It feels like the problem is too big, right? It feels like our data is already out there and all these different ways and there’s really nothing to be done about it. We’ve all adopted a learned helplessness around the ability to be connected, but have some sort of private, some sort of control over our own data, but that’s not necessarily true.”

Cape’s first efforts can be targeted on offering eSIMs to customers, which Doyle stated can be bought primarily on a pay as you go format to keep away from the info {that a} contract may entail. Cape on Thursday additionally introduced a partnership with UScellular, which itself supplies an MNVO overlaying 12 mobile networks; Doyle stated that Cape is speaking with different telcos, too. Initially, it’s unlikely to bundle that eSIM with any cellular gadgets, though that is also not off the desk for the long run, Doyle stated. Nor will the corporate present encryption companies round apps, voice calls and cellular information, a minimum of not initially.

“We’re not focused on securing the content of communications. There’s a whole host of app-based solutions out there, apps out there like Proton Mail and Signal, and WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging platforms that do a good job, to varying degrees, depending on who you trust for securing the contents of your communications,” he stated. “We are focused on your location and your identity data, in particular, as it relates to connecting to commercial cellular infrastructure, which is a related but separate set of problems.”

Cape’s not the one firm out there that’s making an attempt (or has tried, past-tense) to deal with privateness within the cellular sphere, however none of them has actually made a mark up to now. In Europe, latest efforts embrace the MVNO Murena, the OS maker Jolla and the {hardware} firm Punkt. People who have come and gone embrace the Privacy Phone (FreedomPop) and Blackphone (from GeeksPhone and Silent Circle).

There’s already the choice to purchase a pay as you go SIM within the U.S. anonymously, however Cape factors out that this has different trade-offs and isn’t as safe as what Cape is constructing. Though funds for this is perhaps nameless, a consumer’s information continues to be routed by the community infrastructure of the underlying service, making a consumer’s actions and utilization observable. You can even nonetheless be open to SIM swap assaults and spam.

For a16z, the funding is changing into part of the agency’s “American Dynamism” effort, which this week acquired a $600 million boost from the most recent $7.2 billion in funds that the VC raised.

“Cape’s technology is an answer to long-standing, critical vulnerabilities in today’s telecom infrastructure that impacts everything from homeland security to consumer privacy,” stated Katherine Boyle, basic accomplice at a16z, in a press release. “The team is the first to apply this caliber of R&D muscle to rethinking legacy telecom networks, and are well placed to reshape the way mobile carriers think about their subscribers — as customers instead of products.”