Eze Castle Integration is an IT services, technology and consulting firm focused on serving the hedge fund sector of the financial services industry. The firm was founded when Eze Castle Consulting split into two independent entities. It employs 380 people, with offices in Singapore, London, Hong Kong and eight US locations. The company's products span most common IT needs of hedge funds such as technology support, cloud services, disaster recovery, archiving, and voice. Much of its revenue comes from managed and cloud services while its clients are hedge funds and other financial firms.
History
Childhood friends Sean McLaughlin and John Cahaly founded Eze Castle Consulting in 1995. Sean previously worked at several investment firms. Eze Castle Consulting was founded in a borrowed apartment above Sean's father's dental practice. The company was named after Èze, a village in the French Riviera. Eze Castle Consulting began supporting early stage funds in the Boston area, then opened up new offices in New York City, San Francisco and Greenwich, Connecticut in the late-1990s. In 2000, Eze Castle Consulting was split into two independent companies, Eze Castle Software and Eze Castle Integration; Eze Castle Integration became a systems integration company focused on the financial services sector. During the economic downturn in 2000, the firm downsized and reduced many expenditures while continuing to generate a profit. By 2004 the company had grown to a 120-person staff. Throughout the late 2000s, the company introduced Eze Vault, Eze Disaster Recovery, ECI Link and Eze Managed Suites. They also introduced Eze Cloud and started selling Tradar's Insight product in a hosted cloud model. Today a growing percentage of the firm's revenue comes from cloud-based products. In the first eight months of 2008 the average hedge fund declined five percent and 170 hedge funds closed their doors due to ongoing financial volatility. Although 95 percent of the firm's clients were hedge funds, it experienced a revenue increase of 26 percent and obtained sixty new clients during the time period. At the time, the company supported 450 US-based hedge funds, including 81 firms with over $1 billion in management. It opened new offices in Chicago in 2008, and London in 2007. In 2010 and 2011 new offices were opened in Singapore and Hong Kong. In 2010 an affiliate company, Ledgex Systems LLC, was created to develop and support software for fund of hedge funds to automate and manage investment portfolios. In 2018, the company received a significant investment from private equity firm H.I.G. Capital. At the time, Eze Castle had roughly 650 customers across the United States, United Kingdom and Asia. In 2020, Eze Castle Integration acquired Alphaserve Technologies, a provider of infrastructure technology and digital IT services, bringing the company's client base to 800.
Corporate
Business
95 percent of Eze Castle Integration's clients are hedge funds and asset management firms with 80 percent of Eze Castle Integration clients having 10-50 staff. In 2011 over 35 percent of the company's new clients were startups. Eighty percent of the company's new business revenue was from cloud and managed IT related services.
Company culture
Eze Castle Integration is regularly recognized as one of the best places to work. The company's core competency is described as hiring and retaining the best staff.
Products & services
Eze Castle Integration provides IT infrastructure and technology services to hedge funds. Their products are branded with “Eze” such as the Eze Private Cloud and include archiving, backup, disaster recovery; business continuity; private cloud services; integration and support consulting, and the archiving of email, instant messaging and other communications including voice. Some of the firm's products are hosted cloud-based applications from other vendors, including Microsoft Office 365 and Azure. The company also has a cloud platform bundle with email, file and security services intended for hedge funds and investment firms.
