Symphony raises $100 mn from Google, others

Secure cloud-based communications platform Symphony today said it had received a $100 million round of funding from a list of investors that included Google Inc.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Google's investment last week, as it joined Lakestar, Natixis, Societe Generale, UBS and existing investor Merus Capital.

According to Symphony CEO David Gurle, who spoke to TechCrunch, Symphony was looking for $50 million, but the demand was so great, it ended up doubling its original request.

While the stock market had been unpredictable recently, and had not at all been kind to cloud services, Symphony gave investors enough reasons to invest.

''The market is volatile, and people are cautious right now, but in spite of those conditions, investors allowed us to get more money than we wanted,'' he said. ''It's a testament to what we are doing,'' he added.

He suggested that this could be the last time Symphony had to dip into the capital markets for investment, which was fairly unusual for a company just two rounds into its investment life-cycle and only a year old.

''We are in a good position not to go back to capital markets. For the time being we are well-situated with cash and in a very privileged position,'' he said.

''This financing is a vote of confidence in Symphony's value proposition and benefits to business users,'' Gurle said a statement.

According to the statement, Symphony raised $66 million in an earlier fundraising, and a group of existing investors including Merus Capital participated in the latest round as well.