Symphony Communication
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Messaging platform, Financial technology |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Founder | David Gurle |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Area served | Financial institutions |
Key people | Brad Levy (CEO) |
| Products | Symphony messaging platform, Cloud9 voice trading turret system |
Symphony serves as a messaging platform specifically designed for financial institutions, providing features such as workplace chat, voice and video communication, encryption, and integration with third-party plugins.
The Symphony messaging system supports interoperability with mobile applications including WhatsApp, WeChat, and LINE. This platform is developed by Symphony Communication Services.
History
Symphony originated as an internal communication tool at Goldman Sachs named Live Current. In October 2014, Symphony Communication Services LLC was formed with an initial investment of $66 million from Goldman Sachs along with 14 other financial organizations. The company later acquired Perzo, Inc., recognized for its secure messaging app employing end-to-end encryption technology.
Founded in 2012 by David Gurle, Perzo’s founder also served as Symphony’s CEO from 2014 until 2021. Prior to this, Gurle contributed to communication platforms at Skype, Thomson Reuters, and Microsoft.
At the annual Innovate Conference held in New York City in October 2019, Symphony unveiled Symphony 2.0, which introduced Elements—modular software components aimed at streamlining the creation of custom applications on the platform. The official release of Symphony 2.0 occurred in October 2020.
By the year 2020, Symphony's user base had grown to exceed 400,000.
Brad Levy joined the company in July 2020 as president and chief commercial officer and took over as CEO in June 2021 following Gurle’s departure. Levy’s professional experience includes previous positions at Goldman Sachs and IHS Markit.
Funding
In September 2014, a group of fifteen financial institutions, including Bank of America, BNY Mellon, Citi, Credit Suisse, HSBC, and JPMorgan, invested in the Symphony platform.
Symphony secured $100 million in funding during October 2015, led by Google and supported by investors such as Lakestar and Natixis.
In May 2017, an additional $63 million was raised from BNP Paribas alongside existing backers, elevating the company’s valuation beyond $1 billion.
A funding round completed in June 2019 brought in $165 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion, with participation from Standard Chartered, MUFG Innovation Partners, among others. Since its inception in 2014, Symphony has accumulated a total of $460 million in capital.
The latest financing event took place in December 2020 (Series E), where $50 million was raised from current investors.
Acquisitions
On November 28, 2014, Symphony purchased technology assets from Collaboration Services, which operated the open messaging network developed by Markit Ltd.
Symphony expanded its portfolio on August 2, 2021, by acquiring StreetLinx, a platform specializing in counterparty mapping.
On November 29, 2021, the company further enhanced its capabilities through the acquisition of Amenity Analytics, a provider of natural language processing (NLP) data analytics solutions.
Cloud9
Symphony Communication Services LLC acquired Cloud9 Technologies on June 24, 2021. Cloud9 offers a voice trading turret phone system tailored for financial traders. Established in 2014 and built utilizing Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) technology, Cloud9’s initial clients included JP Morgan, Icap, and Barclays.
As a cloud-native Voice over IP (VoIP) service, Cloud9 operates without requiring dedicated physical hardware while offering optional devices. To meet regulatory requirements for financial trading communications, it provides features such as voice-to-text transcription and secure data storage.
License
The Symphony Software Foundation utilizes the Apache License 2.0 to distribute the software as open-source, allowing contributions to be accessed through its GitHub repository.