by c9tec | May 17, 2016 | Press Coverage
Original Article on The Native Society
Gerald (Jerry) Starr is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned business leader. With over 30 years of experience starting companies and leading larger businesses Jerry has an exceptional track record of success. Jerry was founder and CEO of Tec Turrets, which was acquired by Tie Communications. He also founded Bridge Electronics which developed pioneering technology in the foreign exchange markets and was ultimately acquired by IPC. Following the Bridge acquisition, Jerry became CEO of IPC, leading the company through a LBO until its acquisition by Global Crossing. Jerry was also founder and CEO of Lexar, which developed cloud communications services for the financial markets. Lexar was acquired by Westcom Corporation in 2006.
Cloud9 Technologies is Jerry’s fourth business venture as founder and CEO. With a passion for the financial markets, Jerry’s and the teams goal is to introduce transformational technology that changes the way financial institutions engage, connect and collaborate.
How did you get into Financial-Tech industry?
I had a passion for the financial markets and the financial communications space early in my career. Trader voice communications is a fascinating piece of the financial industry – it presents very nuanced challenges that aren’t present in other industries. It’s a hectic, competitive, and incredibly high-stakes environment, and I became interested in helping firms improve the quality of their business through technology that supports effective communication.
I have sold several startups in the space, and ended up being an executive at a number of traditional telephony providers before deciding to start Cloud9 with my current co-founders.
Any emerging industry trends?
There are a number of incredibly exciting things happening in the communication and collaboration space right now. One of the key technologies that our system is built on, Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC), is a very significant piece of technology built by Google is just now starting to hit the mainstream with Apple and Facebook starting to leverage it in their applications. It supports high-quality voice and video connections, and enables us to build a very targeted application for the financial services sector that we can use to layer in security and compliance features that meet the demands of some of our largest financial customers.
The technology also gives us the ability to extend our solution in the future to other uses cases. I think this is just the beginning, but WebRTC will not only change the way we think about enterprise communications, but it will also affect the way you make a call or send a message going forward. The possibilities of WebRTC are limitless, and we’re lucky to have experts on our team that have been leading the adoption of this technology in the industry.
Any industry opportunities or challenges?
There is a huge opportunity for our solution in the in financial services industry. Most firms have been dealing with the same communication technology that hasn’t evolved in over 40 years. Leveraging modern infrastructure like AWS we’ve been able to quickly build a cloud-based application that has a greater degree of security and better voice quality and controls than the industry has ever seen – while significantly reducing their communication costs. We’ve also got an unrivaled user community that is enabling our customers to connect to new counterparties they may not have previously done business with. It’s fundamentally changing the way the industry operates when it comes to voice trading.
Inspiration for Cloud9 Technologies, and your vision for it?
After working for so many years in the trader voice communications space, it became clear to Cloud9’s founding team that there was a huge opportunity for innovation in the industry. We looked at consumer messaging applications like Facetime and What’s App – and thought there has to be a way to make trader communication better using modern technology. Voice trading and turret technology was invented in the 70s, and it hasn’t been adapted for modern trading floors. We realized we had the expertise, the drive, and the right technology was available disrupt the space.
Today some of the world’s biggest banks, including J.P. Morgan and Barclays, have invested in us. We currently have clients 21 countries around the world, we’re used by 2,000 traders at 350 firms. We’ve been able to build a world-class team and make incredible impact in just over a year and a half. Our vision is to build a product that can be used beyond the financial services sector.
What’s next for Cloud9 in the near future?
In the short term we’re focusing on continuing to build a product and community that traders love. We’re also focused on expanding globally.
Your key initiatives for the success of Cloud9?
We’ve really focused on building the right team of people, and taking talent from outside of the fintech sector. Its helped us to build a modern application that is truly transforming the way traders communicate.
We’ve also worked hard on building a culture of approachability and innovation. Employees are encouraged to take risks, and anyone can approach senior management with their best ideas.
Your most difficult moment at Cloud9 (and what did you learn?)
I think one of the most difficult moments with this business, in particular was getting a consortium of banks together to fund us and then getting them on the same page. This was my first experience with a consortium for funding, and I learned a lot about patience.
Ideal experience for a customer/client?
When we give demonstrations of our product, one of the first things people comment on is the sound quality and the second question people ask is who can I connect to. So part of our ideal experience is ensuring that the voice communication aspect of our product is high quality, and that people can easily connect with their counterparties and find new ones. We also want to remove the hassle and costs associated with private lines and traditional telecom equipment.
Voice communication should be as easy as instant message – and that’s what we’re striving for with Cloud9.
How do you motivate others?
It’s incredibly important to myself and my executive team to foster a welcoming and supportive work environment, where people feel comfortable taking risks. We’ve worked hard to bring people onto the team that excel in their respective areas, but also bring positivity and fun to the office – we want people to enjoy coming to work every day and feel like they are getting the support to move upward in their careers. We work incredibly hard, but we also make time for weekly happy hours, ping pong tournaments, pizza lunches, and celebrations for new hires. One of my favorite traditions, which I’ve taken with me through my professional career, is the office-wide Jenga game – each member of the office has to go up and pull a Jenga block- needless to say, it reveals a lot about different personalities very quickly!
Career advice to those in your industry?
The career advice that I give everyone is that in business if you make 10 decisions, for example, you hope at least six are correct. Then you take a look at the four that aren’t, and you go back and fix them. It is okay to make a few mistakes along the way – and how you address them counts.
See Original Article on The Native Society
by c9tec | May 16, 2016 | Press Coverage
By Oscar Williams-Grut
Original Article on Business Insider
ICAP as we know it is dead.
The £2.9 billion City of London dealer-broker announced a deal to sell its global broking division to rival Tullett Prebon last year.
But on Monday the company, which buys and sells derivatives and swaps for clients, revealed it will also sell its brand name, ICAP, with the deal and reinvent itself as NEX Group.
CEO Michael Spencer, a major Tory party donor, says NEX Group “intends to lead the market in technology innovation in global financial markets.” As part of this shift, Spencer says: “Euclid Opportunities, our early-stage fintech investment incubator, which finds these new investments will play a bigger and more important role as we become NEX Group plc.”
ICAP needs to reinvent itself because its traditional business of brokering exotic products for clients is the toilet. In the post-2008 worlds, bankers and finance workers are looking to de-risk their businesses, not indulge in the complex bets that characterized the City in the decade before the crash.
So Spencer wants to transform ICAP into a venture capital firm to help it find the products and services that finance workers do want now.
Fintech, or financial technology, is the name given to the wave of startups that have sprung up since the financial crisis that are aiming to refine or reinvent finance using technology.
Faster and cheaper tech has made businesses that would have been unthinkable even years years ago relatively cheap and easy to do.
ICAP has been making strategic investments in technology startups since the early 2000s but it has recently been stepping up activities, investing in the last year in:
In April ICAP also acquired ENSO Financial Analytics, a portfolio analytics provider to asset managers and hedge funds. Through deals like this ICAP, or NEX Group as we should now call it, hope to “create the world’s leading multi-product global electronic transaction network for OTC products and post-trade services.”
You can already see a theme emerging from ICAP’s investments so far — compliance and regulation. These are the watchwords in the City after 2008 and technology offers a way to do smarter and cheaper analytics and recording of what it is you are holding and just how risky it is.
ICAP announced its plans to bet big on new products and services alongside a set of full-year results that show just why it needs to reinvent itself. Here are the key figures:
- Revenue down from £1.27 billion to £1.2 billion;
- Pre-tax profit down from £95 million in 2015 to £89 million;
- Profit margin down from 20% to 18%.
Spencer says in the results statement:
Trading conditions continue to be challenging as a result of the macro economic environment, historically low and negative interest rates and continued bank deleveraging. These headwinds have naturally impacted our performance during the year. In the US in December 2015, we saw the welcome first step in raising interest rates but in what is likely to be a long and slow journey towards more normal market conditions.
ICAP’s deal with Tullett has faced some regulatory scrutiny in the US but Spencer says the deal “remains on track to complete later this year.” In 2013, ICAP was fined $87 million (£59 million) for its part in the long-running Libor manipulation scandal by the US Department of Justice.
Original Article on Business Insider
by c9tec | May 12, 2016 | Press Coverage
Are you ready to take advantage of the limitless potential of web real-time communications (WebRTC) within your company?
By Leo Papadopoulos
Original Article on No Jitter
As reported last month in a No Jitter post, Apple, one of the last holdouts of WebRTC adoption, finally placed it in development for the WebKit engine that supports its Safari browser. In the meantime, Facebook has been subtly exposing users to real-time communications via its Facebook Messenger app — and now boasts the largest market share of WebRTC users. Such green-lighting shows that WebRTC is battle-tested and ready for rollout, and any company that’s been hesitant should be taking a second look at the technology.
A number of companies that provide enterprise technology have already embraced WebRTC with a great degree of success. One example is Vidyo, which offers a number of WebRTC-capable enterprise video conferencing solutions already in use by organizations such as the Department of Defense, Kaiser Permanente, and Bloomberg (see related post, “Bloomberg Trades on Ease of Video Calling“). As Jeffrey Fairbanks, Bloomberg’s global head of AV and media technology, told No Jitter, the company considers the technology to be a critical piece of its strategic vision for real-time video communications. As such, Fairbanks said he needed to make sure Vidyo’s WebRTC roadmap aligned with Bloomberg’s.
“The wide adoption of WebRTC gives any website developer the capability to simply bring real human interaction to their digital presence,” Fahim Siddiqui, SVP of Cloud Service at Vidyo, noted in a recent conversation. “By taking away the friction of plug-ins and downloads, developers can now be confident of providing a seamless digital experience that is personal and human.”
The sky is the limit for WebRTC, and we know it won’t be long before it is the standard for enterprise communications. J.P. Morgan Chase and Barclays last month announced their support for WebRTC-enabled, cloud-based voice trading, for example. And, we’ve seen numerous examples of successful WebRTC usage in the U.S. government, clinical healthcare, pharmacies, the hospitality industry, insurance, higher education, utility, and retail. The technology has clearly moved beyond its initial use case in customer service and customer communication interactions via browser-based tools, and is now facilitating communication at the highest levels of government and in some of the most security-, compliance-, and performance-conscious industries of the world.
The impact could mean that modern telecom companies as we know them become obsolete as new players emerge with cheaper, more reliable, and more adaptable communication tools that power enterprise communication and collaboration.
Couple WebRTC with Internet of Things sensors loaded onto your refrigerator, home security system, or television and — voila! — you can create everything from telepresence to omnipresent customer support for your household appliances.
WebRTC comes into the enterprise in improved support, monitoring, and collaboration tools that simplify the way employees work and connect. But its potential really is limitless.
Original Article on No Jitter
by c9tec | Apr 27, 2016 | Press Coverage
Original Article on AlleyWatch
From the first written letters all the way to Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, communication has always been around to make life easier. In our digital age this is not hard to see, but sometimes we are content with less effective modes of communication. Cloud9 Technologies is your daily reminder that you are communicating across your workforce as efficiently as possible. Their affordable and clear cloud communication platform can save you time and maybe even a few deals.
AlleyWatch got in touch with the president, Greg Kenepp, and spoke about workplace communication and about the company’s most recent round of funding.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We received Series A funding from J.P. Morgan, ICAP, and Barclays. A few additional investors have also requested participation in this round, so we will announce the funding amount when it is finalized.
Tell us about your product or service.
Cloud9 is a cloud communications service provider that delivers high-performance voice and collaboration services for financial firms and institutional traders. We connect counterparties across all asset classes with an easy-to-use platform that eliminates costly infrastructure, features end-to-end security and encryption, and is fully compliant with the latest call recording and retention mandates.
Cloud9 is currently used by more than 2,000 traders at 350 firms across 21 countries.
What inspired you to start the company?
The co-founders of the company, including CEO, Jerry Starr; Chief Product Officer, Steve Kammerer; and CTO, Leo Papadopoulos, saw a clear need for a better communication solution in the trader voice space. Turrets, the legacy trader voice system, are a 40+ year old technology that lack a great deal of the functionality needed for a modern working environment. Workers are mobile, and teams, as well as business partners, are often geographically dispersed – businesses need to be able to effectively communicate and collaborate anywhere, at any time, in real-time.
With their knowledge of the industry, cloud services, and technology like WebRTC, they knew they could create a revolutionary solution that would be enterprise-ready, secure, mobile, and allow users to make connections in the industry.
How is it different?
Cloud9 is a truly disruptive technology compared to the legacy trader voice systems (turrets) that have become the status quo on trading floors.
Cloud9 offers a communications solution that is up to 50% more affordable, has superior voice quality, and can be used anywhere there is an internet connection – all without compromising security or compliance requirements.
We also offer the Cloud9 Community, a directory that gives you the opportunity to make quick, easy connections with fellow users and expand business. We’ve had customers tell us that they were able to expand the number of trading parties available to them using our community, which is certainly something that cannot be done with a traditional turret.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
We’re currently targeting the financial services industry, and even more specifically, institutional traders. There are 220,000 institutional traders and 2,500 trading floors globally.
What’s your business model?
We have a monthly, subscription-based model. Since our service requires zero hardware, it can be easily and inexpensively deployed across a business and managed by existing IT teams. There is no additional cost for scaling up or down based on business needs.
Tell us about the experience of the founders before creating Cloud9. Did this make a difference?
We have all worked together for many years in the industry and have been through numerous rounds of funding for previous companies, but something about this product and this opportunity just felt special. We knew we were creating a product that not only would change the way the financial services industry operates, but could also provide a foundation for changing how the world communicates. I knew immediately that I had to be a part of it.
What was the funding process like?
Our founders came from the industry, and we had skin in the game in terms of personal investment of money and time. We were also able to build a network of users quickly.
Our investors trusted us because we are also looking to create a disruptive technology and scale the company, we’re not about landing on magazine covers or creating a lifestyle around what we’re doing. We just want to make good products, and build a great company.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Patience is the biggest challenge any company is faced with during a capital raise. Even if you have the right investors lined up, it takes time to get through all of the details and get everything closed out.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Our investors are actually some of our biggest customers – they have tried our service and experienced the benefits firsthand on their balance sheets and have seen the positive impact on their traders’ workflow. ICAP is already using our service within its energy trading teams and J.P. Morgan will be implementing our solution across their trading desks globally. We’ve had a great collaborative relationship with Barclays as we develop the product for their unique needs.
In addition, our investors highly trust the expertise of our leadership team and have a great deal of confidence that we are building a team and a product that will truly revolutionize the way communications is thought about in the industry.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
In the coming months we’ll be rolling out a new product that will expand our offerings for the financial services community. We are also looking at establishing a presence in Asia as well as in Latin America.
We will be opening an additional sales and support office in Singapore in the coming weeks to help serve their robust financial services market.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
The most important thing any company can do is focus in building their business, and the rest will come. The worst thing you can do is chase an exit, or constantly react to your competitors.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Over the near term we are focusing on expanding our company internally and building a world-class team to help support the Cloud9 service as well as create and innovate for the future.
Where is your favorite bar in the city for an after work drink?
Dear Irving in Gramercy.
See Original Article on AlleyWatch
