Among investment banks, Goldman Sachs has had an active twelve months or so in regards to acquiring stakes in financial infrastructure firms. In September of last year, Goldman Sachs led a bank consortium $66 million investment in Perzo. Later renamed Symphony, the company provides secure company and cross-firm messaging services, and is viewed as a potential competitor to Bloomberg. In addition, Goldman has been reported to have conducted multi-million dollar investments in data mining fintech startups such as Kensho.
Adding to their list of investments, Perseus announced that Goldman Sachs has acquired a $20.5 million minority stake in the firm. A provider of data network solutions, Perseus offers low latency connectivity, Hosting and Colocation services. The firm is known for their LiquidPath offering of direct high speed point to point networks between major trading hubs such as New York, London, and Chicago, as well as co-location services. Perseus also supports companies in other industries such as media, eCommerce and online gaming to provide high speed loading of internet based services.
According to Perseus, the investment will assist them to “accelerate expansion of its global managed services network”. In regards to the funding, Dr. Jock Percy, CEO of Perseus stated “The investment by Goldman Sachs is an important accelerator of our business. It enables us to maintain our leadership position in product and service innovation, while more rapidly expanding our global network. This ensures that we continue to meet and exceed our customers’ performance objectives around the world”.
For Goldman Sachs, as a provider of trading services to hedge funds, asset managers, and other banks and brokers, the investment can be viewed as strategic, as Perseus’s offering overlaps with their own connectivity needs as well as providing a solution to their customers. On the deal, Terry Doherty, a director at Goldman Sachs commented about Perseus that “Not only is their business performance exceptional, but they have the potential to dramatically shift the way that the global markets engage by introducing faster and more secure managed services to the industry.”
