Buy-Side Technology Awards 2015: Best Buy-Side Product for 2015—Algomi Honeycomb

By winning this category, one of only two announced on the day of this year’s awards, Algomi joins an elite group of recipients in the winners’ circle: Markit (2008); Eagle Investment Systems (2009); Cadis, now part of Markit (2010), SmartStream (2011); Advise Technologies (2012); and LCH.Clearnet (2013). Last year’s win went to London-based Vermilion Software for its outstanding Vermilion Reporting Suite, which won the best client reporting platform and best implementation at a buy-side firm, a feat it achieved again this year (see pages 54 and 63). 

Algomi, launched in December last year, is underpinned by its Honeycomb network, a Java-based engine hosted by Algomi, that applies business rules to filter, transform, aggregate and route content from multiple sources—primarily sell-side firms—in a contextual fashion to the buy side. Honeycomb is installed within each bank’s trade-processing system, providing investors with verified, accurate data. It is built on asynchronous messaging between components, which, according to Algomi, enables loose coupling, isolation, and location transparency; it also utilizes a distributed in-memory data cache for caching and performance improvement. 

Honeycomb displays investors’ portfolios and planned trades intuitively, allowing them to view information shared with them from multiple sell-side firms, without revealing their intentions until they are ready to open communication. Once their intentions have been revealed to their chosen bank (dealer), sales contacts are notified internally as to which other salespeople have clients most likely to be on the other side of a particular bond trade, reducing the number of potential leakage points within a counterparty.

In August this year, some seven short months after its launch, Algomi announced that it had signed its 100th buy-side client. However, immediately after receiving Algomi’s award at this year’s BST Awards lunch, Usman Khan, Algomi’s co-founder and CTO, who had jetted in overnight from New York to be at the awards, confirmed that Algomi’s buy-side client roster had already passed the 150 mark, illustrating its astonishing appeal to the buy side. Not bad for four months’ work.    

Honeycomb displays investors’ portfolios and planned trades intuitively, allowing them to view information shared with them from multiple sell-side firms, without revealing their intentions until they are ready to open communication.