Google takes stake in Wall Street-backed chat company Symphony

Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock are among the banks and investment firms that have previously put their support behind Symphony, which launched its service on September 15.

Google plans to invest in a new round of funding for messaging company Symphony Communication Services that values the Bloomberg challenger at $650 million, sources close to the matter have told The Wall Street Journal. This money was used to acquire Perzo, a company that was building a secure communications platform, after which the firm’s founder David Gurle was named as Symphony’s CEO.

The Department of Financial Services (DFS) last month reached an accord with four banks, including Deutsche Bank (Other OTC: DBAGF – news) and Credit Suisse (LSE: 0QP5.L – news), obliging Symphony to retain copies of all electronic communications sent to or received from them for seven years (Other OTC: UBGXF – news).

This service is compliant with Finra and Sarbanes-Oxley and lets users follow certain subjects via a hashtag system, allowing them to easily track a particular industry within the platform.

Symphony is primarily aimed at users working in the financial services industries and could provide serious competition to the likes of Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters.

Symphony charges businesses with more than 50 users $15 per user per month. Smaller businesses and individuals can use the tool free of cost.

According to reports Monday afternoon October 5, Google is off to the Symphony.