How Green Key's voice software is threatening to put hardware phones out of business

by Sam Dewey
September 22, 2015

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Are traditional telephone calls about to go extinct?

If one Chicago startup has its way, they certainly will be soon.  

Meet Green Key Technologies, a voice software development firm that says it’s disrupting the industry of hardware telephony.

“Telephone calls are totally inefficient and outdated,” said Anthony Tassone, founder and CEO of Green Key. “That’s not how we’re going to collaborate in the future.”

With Green Key, users can instead build a virtual voice workspace in order to quickly and concurrently communicate with their network of contacts. Green Key offers push to talk and ringdown functionalities, empowering users to drag and drop colleagues into conference calls on the fly. And the software still allows for traditional inbound and outbound calling.  

For now, Green Key is designed specifically for financial markets. The company’s executive team — all former brokers or traders in their own right — knows a thing or two about that space.

“We’re trying to facilitate a network where you can quickly call or push to talk to a trader or broker and say, ‘I’ve got this bond to sell or this option I need to price — are you interested?’ It’s much more efficient, more productive, and a more personal relationship than just emailing or instant messaging a broker,” Tassone said.

On top of their private, streamlined voice collaboration software, Green Key’s platform also allows its users to easily manage and discover key players in their networks by building a personal profile that list products they broker or trade.

“If you’re a natural gas trader, you can log in to Green Key and have hundreds of natural gas brokers to choose from and establish a personal relationship with,” he said.  

Although Green Key operates exclusively in the financial sector, Tassone said they have plans to bring their product to the enterprise market in order to offer voice collaboration to businesses.

Tassone said brokers and traders currently rely on $10,000 hardware telephones called turrets, a clunky and expensive infrastructure that offers limited opportunities to connect with others — and only after they’ve granted you permission.

Green Key is 95 percent cheaper than those turrets and unlocks the door to an unlimited amount of connections, he said.

The company is hiring at a breakneck pace, looking to take on two to three new hires a month until their headcount reaches around 40.

And Tassone said Green Key’s horizons look propitious.

“The same thing that Slack did for instant messaging, we’re trying to do for voice,” Tassone said.

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Jobs at GreenKey Technologies (GK)

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