How Good Partnerships Promote Success

We, at Symphony Communication Services, are honored to receive Acquisition International’s Deal of the Year award for our fundraising work with 14 of the world’s most prominent banks in a deal that was announced in October 2014.

Some may wonder why Symphony, a Silicon Valley-based, technology startup, was backed by several well-known Wall Street institutions. While at first glance this may seem like an unusual alliance, there are actually many synergies at play. Overall, finding the right partners has always been ingrained in the DNA of Symphony, from our beginnings as Perzo to our recent announcement of the acquisition of technology assets from Markit.

When I founded Perzo in 2012, the predecessor to Symphony, I did so with the goal to change the way business is done by making communication between all people simpler, yet richer. In a recent blog post, I discussed Digital Communications Fatigue, or DCF, as the frustration felt by our inability to be fulfilled by the numerous, existing communication channels that complicate the communication processes in our lives. When the Perzo platform launched in November 2013, we had taken the first step towards my vision of bringing together the fragmented messaging marketplace by creating one communication hub that is available to everyone.

Working with the financial services industry, where information is currency, became the next obvious step. We knew that their needs and desire for a more performant communication platform would validate and refine our vision in helping us to become the global communication platform for high-value content.

As we were engaged in product discussions with our potential customers, it became obvious that their desire to have a solution to their communications needs would be best architected if they would also become investors in Symphony. This investment construct gave us a unique edge over other solution providers.

The investment by these financial institutions has provided the infusion of capital and beta testers needed to grow and expand our platform into a global communication and collaboration solution for all business and professionals. As a result, we were able to make our first acquisition – in December 2014, we acquired technology assets from Markit’s Collaboration Services.

This acquisition made perfect sense. Symphony and Markit share a similar philosophy in regards to an open approach to communication, particularly as it pertains to the financial industry. By incorporating this technology with our secure messaging platform, we can create a secure and managed directory of verified contacts across the industry. This will bring immediate efficiencies and value to our existing customers.

Identifying and creating partnerships that are complementary to our goals has been a crucial aspect of our growth and success thus far. Looking to the future, we see many opportunities to create new partnerships that will move us even closer towards our goal of simpler, richer and more human communication for all – to the financial services industry and beyond.