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.

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., a global Fintech leader, today announced that it has acquired Alpha Omega, a market-leading FIX-based post-trade solutions provider for the investment management industry. This acquisition builds on Broadridge's recent acquisition of Itiviti. The acquisition, which encompasses the remaining 68% of Alpha Omega, will enable Broadridge to fully consolidate Alpha Omega’s post-trade matching and consolidation solution into its existing NYFIX connectivity and FIX infrastructure to better automate buy-side and sell-side firms’ trade matching processes and further accelerates Broadridge’s product roadmap.

“We are excited to formalize our four-year strategic partnership with Alpha Omega through this acquisition,” said Ray Tierney, President of Itiviti, a Broadridge business. “We are leading technology innovation in post-trade, and this acquisition is a testament to our continued growth and momentum in transforming this space. NYFIX Matching is the first ‘one-stop’ platform to handle all of a fund’s trade matching needs across various product types and asset classes.”

Alpha Omega brings invaluable expertise in advanced FIX-based technology for asset managers and broker/dealers in all areas covering automated allocation, confirmation and affirmation of trades for equities, fixed income securities, and derivatives. 

NYFIX Matching, which combines Alpha Omega’s FIXAffirm solution with Itiviti’s NYFIX network, provides the market a single, consolidated platform to handle the entire affirmation process with the same speed and efficiencies of trading now applied to the post-trade piece of the workflow. Buy-side institutions can easily access NYFIX Matching through their existing NYFIX connections as a fully managed service. Through this service, the buy-side can allocate and match their trades, accomplishing same-day affirmation with a global community of more than 100 brokers. This extension of the NYFIX service into post-trade will deliver processing efficiencies with significant cost savings over current solutions.

Worldstream, a fast-growing global IaaS services provider with company-owned data centers in the Netherlands and more than 15,000 dedicated servers installed, is expanding its presence across Europe with the deployment of a new data center in maincubes’ FRA01 facility in Frankfurt, Germany. It includes the installation of a new Point-of-Presence for Worldstream’s 10Tbit/s global network and allows Worldstream to now offer private cloud, dedicated servers, block and object storage, DDoS protection, colocation and other IaaS services from Frankfurt. These products can also be delivered ‘as-a-service’, powered by their recently launched SDN, Worldstream Elastic Network and aimed at MSPs.

The maincubes FRA01 facility in Frankfurt, Germany is a purpose-built, 3 story data center which is located close to one of the world’s largest Internet Exchanges, DE-CIX. Equipped with energy efficient cooling technologies, a high-redundancy setup, rigorous security measures and dense connectivity options, maincubes FRA01 is able to provide Worldstream with a solid additional data center hub for the delivery of Worldstream’s IaaS services across Europe and beyond.

Worldstream’s IaaS services now available in Frankfurt include a wide variety of hybrid IT options including private cloud, dedicated servers, storage, colocation, DDoS protection, cloud onramps, and more. Its expanding portfolio of as-a-service solutions powered by this Worldstream Elastic Network would especially be interesting for managed service providers (MSPs) across Europe. All these IaaS services are backed by the company’s proprietary high-bandwidth global network backbone with more than 10Tbit/s available and 45% utilization. Based on client demand, Worldstream expects that its data center expansion into Germany will be to the liking of its customers and will prove to be a welcome European extension to Worldstream’s company-owned data centers in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands.

Bulletproof Walls, Tail Gating, 2N Redundancy

“The maincubes FRA01 facility in Frankfurt has quite an impressive design,” said Tim Vollebregt, Network Director of Worldstream. “Its military-grade security measures such as tail gating technologies, silent nozzles, palm vein scanning, and even bullet proof walls, really exceeded our expectations. While cost efficiency and flexibility are preserved, our new data center will definitely cater to the most demanding security needs of our SME and Enterprise clients as well as our channel partners. The 2N redundancy applied in FRA01’s cooling and power setups, and their Isolated Parallel configuration with UPSs lined up in a ring configuration also illustrates the world-class design of this facility. It allows us to provide true 100% data center uptime guarantees to our clients.”

“As a company that has seen tremendous growth in recent years, Worldstream is in good company, with other clients in our FRA01 facility including DAX-listed enterprises, Global Tech companies as well as high-growth companies within telecom and automotive,” said Joris te Lintelo, Vice President at maincubes. “With ample data center growth opportunities including our new data center in Frankfurt under construction and additional German cities in planning, we’re perfectly able to support Worldstream’s further growth throughout the European market.”

“Worldstream is a great addition to the portfolio of international clients in our FRA01 facility using Frankfurt as a hub for extended European data center operations,” added Oliver Menzel, CEO at maincubes. “Our high-level security and compliance standards align well with the data center standards Worldstream is used to, and I expect we can be of great value to further expand their European IaaS services footprint.”

Worldstream Elastic Network

At this new data center location in Frankfurt, Worldstream clients can make use of the company’s recently launched SDN, Worldstream Elastic Network (WEN). As a software-defined network powered by Worldstream’s 10Tbit/s global network backbone, WEN is available at any network PoP location where Worldstream’s 10Tbit/s global network backbone has data center presence.

“Our Elastic Network is a game changer for the regional and global deployment of hybrid data center, networking and cybersecurity infrastructure. Clients in Frankfurt may also appreciate the competitive price/quality ratio of the private cloud, cloud onramps, dedicated servers, storage, DDoS protection and 10Tbit/s global network which Worldstream is bringing now to this prominent Internet traffic hub in Frankfurt,” said Ivo Roomer, CEO of Worldstream. “maincubes is an ideal data center partner to facilitate our current expansion throughout Europe. As Worldstream is known for its quick, 7-minutes engineering response times, with partnering we’re always looking for like-minded companies with a can-do mentality. Like us, the people at maincubes are keen to bring out the best in themselves, always further improving their offerings and setting the bar high when it comes to their security, energy-efficiency, compliance, and optimal service-orientation.”

The Worldstream Elastic Network provides SMEs, enterprises, MSPs, CSPs and systems integrators the opportunity to flexibly deploy, interconnect and easily scale IaaS resources at this new data center location in Frankfurt.

“WEN will allow clients in Frankfurt to instantly deploy, combine, interconnect and scale all kinds of IaaS services including bare metal, private cloud, public cloud, object and block storage, firewalls, anti-DDoS, and colocation, all in one centralized environment,” added Mr. Roomer. “It also gives them the ability to move workloads ad hoc and in real-time from one physical data center to another. Moreover, powered by EVPN and VXLAN technologies, our WEN software-defined platform has an ‘open’ design even allowing for 3^rd party data center connections and multi-location setups. As said, it’s a real game changer, especially for MSPs who are enabled to flexibly meet their clients’ IT infrastructure needs at all times.”

NCR to provide complete digital currency solution for Banks, Retailers and Restaurants

NCR Corporation, a leading enterprise technology provider, today announced a definitive agreement to acquire LibertyX, a leading cryptocurrency software provider.

“Due to growing consumer demand, our customers require a complete digital currency solution, including the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency, conduct cross-border remittance and accept digital currency payments across digital and physical channels,” said Tim Vanderham, Chief Technology Officer, NCR Corporation. “The LibertyX solution will accelerate our ability to rapidly deliver these capabilities to the market.”

The LibertyX digital currency solution runs on ATMs, kiosks and point-of-sale (POS) systems today. LibertyX partners with independent ATM operators, like Cardtronics, who own and manage ATMs in the U.S. at locations like convenience stores, pharmacies, and supermarkets.

Moving forward, NCR will offer the LibertyX capabilities as part of its solutions for banks, retailers and restaurants. NCR’s digital wallet and mobile applications will provide these capabilities across NCR’s physical and digital touchpoints.

“NCR is an industry leader in banking, retail and hospitality, and has a tremendous customer base across our growth markets,” said Chris Yim, co-founder & CEO, LibertyX. “We look forward to offering NCR’s customers the ability to quickly and easily offer the digital payments and cryptocurrency capabilities consumers want, while significantly expanding the scope, scale and reach of our software.”

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close later this year. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including obtaining certain regulatory licensing consents and approvals.

Data-led marketplace connects startups with investors and NEDs

Connectd, a growth marketplace connecting startups, investors and advisors has landed a $1million seed funding round led by Saracens owner Nigel Wray.

Co-founded by serial entrepreneur Roei Samuel, Connectd aims to ‘break down barriers’ in early-stage funding by using smart matching technology to put data at the heart of startup investment.

Since its launch in February 2020, Connectd has helped almost 100 businesses to raise capital, including a $2.6million Series A round in the Spring of 2021. Using the platform are analysts from VCs including 8Roads, Octopus, Piton Capital and Second City Ventures, in addition to over 1000 angel investors, family offices and advisors.

Joining the round were LiFE Ventures, Toni Nijm of Yobi Partners and Steve Castle of ABC Investors.

Samuel, who sold his first company, an e-sports venture called RealSport, to Gfinity in a multi-million-pound deal at the age of 26, said the Covid-19 pandemic had demonstrated the potential to shake up startup funding.

“It is ironic that with all the leaps made by British businesses, the startup space itself has seen very little in the way of innovation,” he said. “Having founded my own business before investing in startups, I have seen how difficult it is on both sides.

“If you don’t move in traditional circles, it can be very difficult to get access to the capital and outside expertise needed to rapidly scale the business. Similarly, investors can waste hours hopelessly searching for the right opportunity. We see it differently, which is why Connectd brings people together based on what they know, not who they know.”

Connectd operates through a subscription-based model and has grown on average 15% every month since its launch. In the space of just over a year, its team has grown to 23 personnel, with more than 20 positions being recruited for.

The funding will be used to fuel recruitment, build out the product and prepare for international expansion in 2022.

Nigel Wray, leading investor and one of the first backers of Nutmeg & Domino’s Pizza, said: “Connectd is a game-changing platform uniting the three pillars needed to launch a successful business: founding entrepreneurs, investors and advisors. This is the most exciting time in the UK startup scene that I have ever seen, and I am delighted to play a role in helping UK SME businesses and startups to thrive.”

Samuel added: “I truly believe in the power of Connectd to help diversify the UK startup scene. We are proud to have helped companies from under-represented groups to gain access to the finance and people that can turbo charge their growth.”  

Josh Drukarz, Managing Partner at LiFE Ventures commented: "At LiFE Ventures we were particularly excited about the Connectd platform given their desire to democratise the early-stage funding market - typically a closed community limited to insiders. Connectd’s three-sided marketplace supported by a simple digital SaaS solution opens up new opportunities to the mass market. We have found it particularly useful to meet great businesses."