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Symphony<\/a>, a secure\u00a0messaging service\u00a0backed and used by 14 of the biggest banks on Wall Street, is raising up to $200 million in a new round of funding with a pre-money valuation over $1 billion, TechCrunch has learned. The funding will come from existing investors, along with a new backer, the government of Singapore via its investment arm (which\u00a0includes Temasek and GIC). Symphony has plans both to expand\u00a0its\u00a0current business serving the finance community, and it also wants to\u00a0gear up for targeting other verticals, such as healthcare.<\/p>\n Most recently, in March 2015, Symphony had raised $100 million<\/a> at a valuation that sources at the company tell us\u00a0was\u00a0around $700 million. Its existing investors include<\/a> Google,\u00a0Lakestar, Natixis, Societe Generale, UBS, and Merus Capital, as well as\u00a0a consortium of 14 of the world\u2019s largest investment banks and money mangers, including Bank of America, BlackRock, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and JP Morgan. It has raised $166 million<\/a> in total.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether this latest\u00a0round \u2014 which could range between $125 million and $200 million, a source close to the company said \u2014 has completely closed, but it seems that it came out of inbound interest in the company rather than Symphony\u00a0actively seeking the extra capital.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also been in play for a while, it seems. In\u00a0October, the Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> that Symphony was raising up to $100 million, also naming General Atlantic and the Singapore government among potential new investors, corroborating what our source told us.<\/p>\n Symphony itself would not comment directly about this latest infusion (which, again, we\u2019ve heard has come from investors approaching it):<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not seeking new funding,\u201d a spokesperson said. \u201cWe are well-funded for our operations and future growth.\u201d Separately, David Gurle, the CEO and founder of the company, confirmed via the spokesperson that were<\/em> there a round being raised, it would indeed be at above a $1 billion valuation.<\/p>\n Symphony took off as a business in 2014, when the consortium of banks that back it acquired<\/a> a messaging company called Perzo with the intention of creating what some have described as a \u201cBloomberg killer.\u201d This refers to the all-in terminals that Bloomberg makes and licenses\u00a0to financiers that they can use for short communications, to track stocks and watch the world of business news zip by.<\/p>\n The issue for banks has been that they have been dissatisfied with their existing terminal product, which was seen as expensive and bloated with more data than anyone needed or used. On top of that, many of them were turning to\u00a0other\u00a0services like WhatsApp to exchange messages with their contacts and clients.<\/p>\n Symphony was built to fill in that void with a pared-down product.<\/p>\n Putting messaging at the core, earlier this year it added several other key features<\/a>. It now also features voice and video chat; and like Slack and others, it provides a list of other apps that users can add in to expand the service to cover what they actually need. That marketplace <\/a>for now is pretty small: currently only five apps: Dow Jones, Selerity for surfacing content relevant to discussions, Chart IQ, SP market intelligence, and Fintech Studios, another bridge to more data sources.<\/p>\n