Symphony is an instant messaging service designed for use by financial firms. It offers features such as encryption, group messaging, the ability to share rich content, and support for third-party plugins. Symphony is developed by Symphony Communication Services.

History

The technology was initially developed by

Goldman Sachs Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...

as an internal messaging system called Live Current. In October 2014, Goldman Sachs and 14 other financial institutions invested $66 million to establish Symphony Communication Services LLC and acquire Perzo, Inc., a secure communication application known for its

end-to-end encryption End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a system of communication where only the communicating users can read the messages. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including telecom providers, Internet providers, malicious actors, and even ...

messaging. Perzo was founded by David Gurle in 2012, and he served as Symphony's CEO from 2014 to 2021. Perzo played a role in developing communication solutions for

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. Symphony 2.0 was announced during the company's annual Innovate Conference in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in October 2019. This new version introduced features like a customizable user interface and smart notifications. The release of software components called Elements aimed to facilitate the development of custom applications on the Symphony platform. Symphony 2.0 was launched one year later. By 2020, Symphony claimed to have amassed over 400,000 users on its platform. Brad Levy joined Symphony in July 2020 as the president and chief commercial officer. In June 2021, he assumed the role of chief executive officer after former founder David Gurle stepped down from the executive position. Levy had previous experience working at Goldman Sachs and IHS Markit before joining Symphony.

Funding

In September 2014, fifteen financial firms, including

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank w ...

and

BNY Mellon The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, is an American investment banking services holding company headquartered in New York City. BNY Mellon was formed from the merger of The Bank of New York and the Mellon Finan ...

, made investments in Symphony. In October 2015, Symphony announced a successful funding round of $100 million, led by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. Lakestar,

Natixis Natixis is a French corporate and investment bank created in November 2006 from the merger of the asset management and investment banking operations of ''Natexis Banques Populaires'' (Banque Populaire group) and ''IXIS'' (Groupe Caisse d'Epargne ...

, and other firms also participated in the investment. In May 2017, Symphony secured an additional $63 million in funding from

BNP Paribas BNP Paribas is a French international banking group, founded in 2000 from the merger between Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP, "National Bank of Paris") and Paribas, formerly known as the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas. The full name of the grou ...

and existing investors, resulting in a total valuation of the company surpassing $1 billion. In June 2019, Symphony announced a funding round of $165 million with a valuation of $1.4 billion. Standard Chartered, MUFG Innovation Partners, and other undisclosed current and new investors contributed to the funding. Since September 2014, Symphony has raised a total of $460 million. The company's most recent funding round took place in December 2020, known as the Series E round, where it raised $50 million from existing investors.

Acquisitions

On November 28, 2014, Symphony Communication Services LLC completed the acquisition of technology assets from Collaboration Services, the open messaging network developed by Markit Ltd. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. On August 2, 2021, Symphony Communication Services LLC acquired StreetLinx, a counterparty mapping platform.

License

The Symphony Software Foundation has announced its decision to use the Apache License 2.0 for providing the software as open-source. The foundation will make the contributions available through its GitHub repository.

References

External links

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Reason - UK implementation partner
{{DEFAULTSORT:Symphony Communication Services Project management software Collaborative software Goldman Sachs