Wall Street made an ambitious, $300 million bet to build a challenger to Bloomberg - here's how it's getting on
- Secure communication platform Symphony has raised over $300 million from Google and banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. It has been valued at over $1 billion.
- It aims to become the platform that connects secure industries like finance, government, and medicine.
- Banks hope the platform can help them cut down on $24,000-a-year Bloomberg terminal usage.
- Business Insider has spoken to over 35 sources across the industry to understand what Symphony is doing right, what it's getting wrong, and what more it has to do.
- This is a preview of our full investigation, available exclusively to BI Prime subscribers.
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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