
US Mobile is privately held and independent. It has no parent company, no public stock listing, and is controlled by its founder rather than a carrier or private equity owner.
Ahmed Khattak founded the company in 2015 and is still its CEO. He built it in New York City after an earlier venture, GSM Nation, an unlocked-phone retailer he started in 2010.
Outside funding has been modest. The largest disclosed backer is growth-equity firm Volition Capital, which led a $11.5 million Series A in 2021 and a follow-on round in 2022. Total disclosed funding sits around $30 million, small for a carrier.
No valuation has ever been published. US Mobile is not valued in public markets, and the company reports metrics like annual recurring revenue instead. It says it reached roughly $200 million ARR in 2025.
US Mobile is one of the more unusual companies in American wireless. It is a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, meaning it sells phone plans without owning cell towers of its own. What makes it different is that it rents capacity from all three national networks at once and lets customers move between them. It brands Verizon coverage as Warp, AT&T as Dark Star, and T-Mobile as Light Speed, and calls the combined product a "Super Carrier."
Most MVNOs are owned by the very carriers whose networks they resell, or by cable companies and holding groups. US Mobile is not. It remains founder-controlled, largely bootstrapped, and independent of any single network operator. That independence is the whole point of its pitch, and it is the reason its ownership is worth understanding.
Ownership shapes how a reseller behaves. A carrier-owned brand exists to fill spare network capacity for its parent. An independent operator has to negotiate with all its suppliers and answer to its own economics. US Mobile sits in the second camp, which is rare at its scale.
Company overview
US Mobile was founded in 2015 by Ahmed Khattak, who remains chief executive. The company is headquartered in New York City. Khattak had earlier co-founded GSM Nation, an unlocked-phone retailer, in 2010, and used that experience to move into selling wireless service directly.
The core product is a multi-network wireless service. Rather than partnering with one carrier, US Mobile holds wholesale agreements with all three national networks and packages them under its own brand names: Warp on Verizon, Dark Star on AT&T, and Light Speed on T-Mobile. A feature the company calls Teleport lets subscribers switch their line between those networks without changing providers or numbers. US Mobile describes the software that ties the networks together as a "unification layer" it spent roughly a decade building.
The company does not publish audited financials, but it does share growth figures. It says it crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue after about ten years, then roughly doubled to about $200 million ARR during 2025. It has served more than 1 million subscribers over its life, up from about 250,000 in 2020. In 2019 it ranked No. 94 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies.
Ownership structure
US Mobile is privately held
US Mobile is a private company. Its shares do not trade on any exchange, it has no ticker, and it has not announced plans for an initial public offering. It is also not a subsidiary. Unlike Mint Mobile, which is now owned by T-Mobile, or carrier sub-brands that roll up to a network parent, US Mobile has no corporate owner above it. Control rests with its founder and a small group of private investors.
Founder equity
US Mobile has not disclosed a cap table, and the exact size of Ahmed Khattak's stake is not public. What is clear is that he founded the company, has run it since 2015, and raised comparatively little outside capital, all of which point to a founder who retains a large ownership position and effective control. The company has never reported a change of control, a majority sale, or a private equity buyout. Precise percentages, however, are not publicly disclosed and should not be assumed.
Investors by funding round
US Mobile operated for years on minimal outside investment before taking institutional money in 2021. Only two rounds have been disclosed, and neither came with a published valuation.
Round | Date | Amount raised | Lead investor(s) | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Series A | June 2021 | $11.5M | Volition Capital | Not disclosed |
Series A2 | 2022 | $19.5M | Volition Capital | Not disclosed |
The two rounds together brought disclosed Series A funding to roughly $30 million. Some data providers list a higher cumulative figure, but those totals are not confirmed by the company, and no funding round has ever carried a public valuation. Anyone citing a specific enterprise value for US Mobile is estimating, not quoting a disclosed number.
Key institutional investors
Volition Capital, a Boston-based growth-equity firm, is the most significant outside investor. It led the 2021 Series A and returned to lead the 2022 follow-on, making it the anchor institutional backer.
Tiny Capital, the holding company run by Andrew Wilkinson and Jeremy Giffon, participated as well, alongside a group of individual angel investors. Those angels included Ali Moiz, Ahmed Kaishgi, Brian Goldsmith, and James Beshara. None of these backers has been reported to hold a controlling stake, which is consistent with a company that remains founder-led.
IPO signals
There are none. US Mobile has not filed to go public, has not hired IPO advisers publicly, and continues to fund growth from operations and its earlier private rounds. With modest outside capital and no disclosed pressure from investors for a near-term exit, the company has no obvious reason to pursue a listing soon. That could change if it raises a much larger round or if an acquirer emerges, but as of 2026 it presents itself as an independent operator, not an IPO candidate.
Key people in control
CEO and founder: Ahmed Khattak
Ahmed Khattak is the founder and CEO, and the central figure in any discussion of who controls US Mobile. He started the company in 2015, built its multi-network model, and remains its public face and strategic decision-maker. His earlier company, GSM Nation, gave him a background in selling wireless hardware and service outside the carrier system. At US Mobile he has held both the founder and chief executive roles continuously, an unusual degree of stability for a decade-old wireless company.
Leadership team
US Mobile has brought in senior operators as it has grown, including a chief technology officer, Keith Weinberg, hired around the 2022 funding round to lead the engineering behind its network-switching software. The company has not published a formal board of directors. Given Volition Capital's role as lead investor across both rounds, it is reasonable to infer the firm holds board representation or investor rights, but US Mobile has not confirmed board composition. That distinction matters: the founder's operational control is confirmed, while the exact governance structure around him is inferred.
Ownership history and timeline
Year | Event |
|---|---|
2010 | Ahmed Khattak co-founds GSM Nation, an unlocked-phone retailer |
2015 | US Mobile launches as an MVNO, founded by Khattak in New York City |
2019 | US Mobile ranks No. 94 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies |
2020 | Company reports roughly 250,000 subscribers |
June 2021 | Volition Capital leads a $11.5M Series A, the first major outside investment |
2022 | Volition Capital leads a $19.5M follow-on round; Tiny Capital and angels participate |
July 2024 | Adds AT&T-based service under the Dark Star brand, completing coverage across all three networks |
2025 | Company says it roughly doubles to about $200M in annual recurring revenue |
April 2026 | Becomes the first MVNO to bundle Starlink residential internet with its wireless service |
Regulatory and controversy issues
Dependence on the networks it competes with
US Mobile's biggest structural risk is not a lawsuit but its supply chain. It resells capacity from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, the same three companies whose retail brands it competes against. Wholesale terms, data-prioritization rules, and the features US Mobile can offer all depend on agreements it does not fully control. When a carrier changes how it treats resellers, US Mobile has to adapt. Its multi-network model reduces reliance on any one supplier, but it does not remove the underlying dependence.
Thin public disclosure
Because US Mobile is private and founder-controlled, there is little independent verification of its numbers. Subscriber counts, ARR, and growth rates come from the company itself, not audited filings or regulatory reports. This is normal for a private MVNO, but it means outside parties, including potential partners and buyers, are working from self-reported figures. It is a transparency limitation rather than a scandal.
Consumer and network-management scrutiny
Like all US wireless providers, US Mobile operates under FCC rules and general consumer-protection law covering billing, advertising, and network-management claims. Marketing that leans on terms like "unlimited" and "truly unlimited" invites scrutiny when plans carry speed or prioritization limits, a common friction point across the prepaid and MVNO industry. No major enforcement action against US Mobile has been widely reported, but the regulatory perimeter is the same one every carrier and reseller operates inside.
Why ownership matters
US Mobile's ownership structure is the reason its product exists in the form it does. Because no single carrier owns it, the company can rent from all three networks and sell switching between them as a feature. A Verizon-owned or T-Mobile-owned brand could never credibly offer to move customers onto a rival network. Independence is not incidental to the business model; it is the model.
Founder control also shapes strategy. With Ahmed Khattak holding the founder and CEO roles and only a modest amount of outside capital on the books, US Mobile has been able to make long-horizon bets, like spending years building its network-unification software, without the pressure a private equity owner or public shareholders would apply. The April 2026 move to bundle Starlink residential internet, which made it the first MVNO to package satellite broadband from SpaceX with its wireless plans, is the kind of expansion an independent, founder-led company can pursue on its own timeline.
For subscribers, ownership affects trust and durability. An independent operator is not a captive channel for a larger carrier, which is part of the appeal. It also means the company lives and dies on its own economics rather than a parent's subsidy, and that its future, including whether it stays independent or is eventually acquired, rests largely with one founder and a short list of investors.
For those investors, the light funding history is double-edged. Modest outside capital means little dilution and strong founder alignment, but it also means US Mobile has less of a war chest than carrier-backed rivals if it wants to spend aggressively on growth. How that balance plays out will determine whether the company raises a larger round, stays lean, or becomes an acquisition target.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the CEO of US Mobile?
Ahmed Khattak is the founder and CEO of US Mobile. He launched the company in 2015 and has led it continuously since. Before US Mobile, he co-founded GSM Nation, an unlocked-phone retailer, in 2010.
Is US Mobile publicly traded?
No. US Mobile is a privately held company with no stock listing and no ticker symbol. It has not announced any plans for an initial public offering and continues to operate as an independent, founder-controlled business.
Who founded US Mobile?
US Mobile was founded by Ahmed Khattak in 2015 in New York City. He remains its chief executive and is the company's central owner and decision-maker.
Exact ownership percentages are not publicly disclosed. Founder and CEO Ahmed Khattak is understood to retain a large stake given the company's light outside funding. The most significant institutional investor is Volition Capital, which led both disclosed funding rounds. Tiny Capital and several individual angel investors also participated.
How much money has US Mobile raised?
US Mobile has disclosed roughly $30 million in outside funding: a $11.5 million Series A led by Volition Capital in 2021 and a $19.5 million follow-on round in 2022. No funding round has come with a published valuation, and the company was largely bootstrapped before 2021.
Does US Mobile have its own network?
No. US Mobile is an MVNO, so it does not own cell towers or spectrum. It resells capacity from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, branding them Warp, Dark Star, and Light Speed, and lets customers switch between the three. Its own technology is the software layer that manages that switching, not a physical network.