Symphony: The inside story of Wall Streets $300 million bet on secure messaging

Symphony CEO David
Gurle.
Symphony

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Wall Street’s $300 million bet on a new messaging platform to
displace Bloomberg has gained hundreds of thousands of users but
is still struggling to get people to make deals on the platform.

That’s one of the findings from BI’s in-depth
investigation into Symphony, the four-year-old startup backed
by top-tier banks such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

Touted as a “Bloomberg killer” in the press when it launched,
Symphony is headed by a long-time communication industry veteran
and has raised almost $300 million from a host of bluechip
backers. The company has offices around the world and over
300,000 users today.

But questions remain about who is using and for what. One of the
main reasons banks wanted the project to succeed was to cut down
on their expensive $24,000-a-year Bloomberg habit. But analysts
and traders told Business Insider that traders are reluctant to
give up their terminals. Back office staff are adopting Symphony
but they didn’t have Bloomberg terminals in the first place. As a
result, some of the savings hoped for aren’t materializing.

Symphony hopes “bots” on its platform and continued support from
the banks who have invested can help it overcome this hurdle. But
in the meantime, it is looking to other markets to help support
its reported $1 billion valuation.

The company has held high-level talks with the EU about becoming
the secure messaging platform for the eurozone’s government and
also hopes to break into industries such as law and medicine.

These insights and more are
included in BI’s full Symphony investigation, available
exclusively to BI Prime members. The story is based on 3-months
of investigation and conversations with over 35 sources.

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