RiPSIM Technologies, an Ashburn startup making digital SIM cards for mobile devices and telecom operators, has raised $5 million to pursue larger customers across North America and Europe.
Ten Eleven Ventures, a Burlingame, California-based investment firm, led the seed round for RiPSIM. It brings the company's total funding to $11.3 million since its founding in 2021.
RiPSIM CEO and co-founder Christoph Jahr said the bulk of this funding will go toward hiring more developers and sales professionals over the next 12 months as the company continues to target large mobile carriers for customer acquisition. The startup employs 15 people and Jahr hopes to add about 17 workers within the next year.
The investment comes weeks after the startup landed GigSky, a Palo Alto, California-based eSIM provider for international travelers, as its latest customer to rely on RiPSIM for the creation of these digital SIM cards. Since April, RiPSIM has been making eSIMs for Hawaii mobile carrier Mobi, South Dakota-based telecom firm James Valley Wireless and military-grade micro datacenter maker Sempre.ai in Colorado Springs.
Jahr said he is in discussions with at least one large mobile carrier in the U.S. If such a deal is sealed, RiPSIM could conceivably produce eSIM cards for tens of millions of devices, he said, noting that its digital SIM cards are in the cloud and that the company can therefore scale production easily.
Currently, North America is the most lucrative market for RiPSIM because, since 2022, Apple Inc.'s iPhones on the continent only come with eSIMS. That's not the case for its phones in Europe, but Jarh believes it's only a matter of time until eSIMS are standard there as well.
"Europe is next on our focus. It's a very large market, well over 400 million people there," Jahr said. "It's a logical place to go because there's a lot of volume."
But RiPSIM's eSIMs aren't just for phones. Jahr is projecting a continued interest from automakers looking to provide round-the-clock connectivity to vehicles for features like remote start and location tracking, all of which require an eSIM to connect to networks from mobile carriers. He also noted that the use of eSIMs for gas and electrical utility metering devices is growing in popularity and he hopes to position RiPSIM, the only U.S.-based eSIM maker, as a major player in this market.
Getting there might require taking on more funding, Jahr said, which he's open to pursuing if the company is able to meet revenue milestones set by investors. He said the company is generating revenue but declined to share figures.
"Like with anything, nascent technology has a sales cadence. The only way you can accelerate the cadence is to get more salespeople and to advance the product, and both those require more funding," he said. "As we meet our milestones, then we're looking for more funding to expand our business."
