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Transactions

August 2021
Palo Alto, CA
a company backed by
Has acquired
New York, NY


Background

Symphony Communications Services (“Symphony”), the financial markets infrastructure and technology provider backed by more than a dozen global financial firms including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Barclays and Wells Fargo, provides a fully integrated platform designed to standardize, automate and innovate financial services workflows. By connecting a community of over a half million financial professionals from 500+ market participants – Symphony’s network powers connectivity & efficiency globally. 

Marlin & Associates (“M&A”) has maintained a relationship with the executives of Symphony since its founding. Having advised on scores of transactions involving firms that provide B2B capital markets technology, M&A was well positioned to advise Symphony as it looked for opportunities to bring more functionality onto their platform.

 



Overview

M&A organized a dedicated team to work closely with Symphony management to identify, evaluate and form an opinion on strategic fit and value of several potential target firms. 

Amongst others we looked at, StreetLinx – the New York City-based firm that provides a highly regarded, fast-growing, secure counterparty mapping platform that modernizes the exchange of organizational data to drive better connectivity between counterparties. 

M&A worked with Symphony to carefully evaluate StreetLinx from a strategic fit, growth and financial performance perspective – and then we worked with Symphony to assess potential transaction structures , develop negotiation approaches, conduct due diligence reviews, and complete the transaction. 

The acquisition is designed to allow Symphony to extend existing front-office communications capabilities within the sell-side while allowing for the deeper connection to participants across the sell-side and buy-sides.

M&A Role

M&A organized a dedicated team to work closely with Symphony management to identify, evaluate and form an opinion on strategic fit and value of several potential target firms. 

Amongst others we looked at, StreetLinx – the New York City-based firm that provides a highly regarded, fast-growing, secure counterparty mapping platform that modernizes the exchange of organizational data to drive better connectivity between counterparties. 

M&A worked with Symphony to carefully evaluate StreetLinx from a strategic fit, growth and financial performance perspective – and then we worked with Symphony to assess potential transaction structures , develop negotiation approaches, conduct due diligence reviews, and complete the transaction. 

The acquisition is designed to allow Symphony to extend existing front-office communications capabilities within the sell-side while allowing for the deeper connection to participants across the sell-side and buy-sides.

Press

Symphony acquires StreetLinx to offer the most complete and secure verified identity directory in financial services

August 02, 2021

New York and London, August 2, 2021 – Symphony- the leading markets’ infrastructure and technology platform – will now offer the most complete and secure verified directory in the financial services industry as it has acquired the counterparty mapping platform StreetLinx. This acquisition adds over 200 institutional counterparties to the more than 1000 institutions already served by Symphony. 

“As we accelerate from directory to identity solutions, Streetlinx brings Symphony a full spectrum of identity-verified investment professionals, including portfolio managers, traders, research analysts and sales teams that will enrich Symphony’s already established and active community of over half a million financial professionals. We are proud to continue to add value to our user community and the industry as a whole”, said Symphony CEO Brad Levy.  

A secure, enriched and up to date verified directory is a key tool in markets as it increases efficiency and reduces risk across the board. Integrations between the Symphony and StreetLinx platforms are already being deployed, enabling enhanced directory information, entitlement based connections and content distribution across trusted counterparties. The combined solution brings standardization and entitlements to allow professionals to seamlessly connect with the right counterparty, person or platform. 

StreetLinx CEO Gary Godshaw explained: “We founded StreetLinx to modernize the exchange of organizational data and drive better connectivity between counterparties. While we knew the pain points well, it was really our clients who have led and shaped the solution since day one. Joining Symphony is a perfect fit for StreetLinx’s clients and for us as a team. Our combined offering will expand the scope of applications and increase the breadth of use cases for our users from front to back office. We are thrilled to be joining such a strong brand and culture. This deal simply formalizes what has felt like a partnership from the start.”

Levy has previously shared that Symphony would buy, partner with, or acquire strategic assets for the company and the industry. Symphony acquired the trader voice and electronic communication company Cloud 9 Technologies in June, positioning the company to take the lead in front office communications with new services and solutions combining trader voice with natural language processing (NLP) and automation. The company also announced in July it had chosen Google Cloud as its primary cloud provider and would be migrating its platform in the coming year. 

Marlin & Associates and Goodwin Procter LLP were financial and legal advisers, respectively, to Symphony, while Broadhaven Capital Partners and Goodwin Procter LLP were financial and legal advisers, respectively, to Streetlinx in this transaction. Financial details of this transaction have not been disclosed.

About Symphony 

Symphony is the most secure and compliant markets’ infrastructure and technology platform, where solutions are built or integrated to standardize, automate and innovate financial services workflows. It is a vibrant community of over half a million financial professionals with a trusted directory and serves over 1000 institutions. Symphony is powering over 2,000 community built applications and bots. For more information, visit www.symphony.com. 

About Streetlinx 

StreetLinx, the preeminent financial services counterparty mapping platform, is a marketplace for the exchange of organizational data with trusted third parties. The firm standardizes internal directories and provides entitlement controls for sharing bilaterally between counterparties. 130+ buy-side firms and 50+ dealers have joined the platform since its launch in 2019.  

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