TeleMessage

Last updated

TeleMessage
Company typePrivate
Industry Software
Founded1999;26 years ago (1999)
Founder
  • Guy Levit
  • Gil Shapira
Headquarters Israel
Key people
  • Guy Levit
  • (CEO)
  • Horacio Furman
  • (Chairman)
Products Messaging
Revenue$6.1 million (2016) USD
Owner
  • Independent (1999–2005)
  • Messaging International plc (2005–24)
  • Smarsh (2024–present)
Number of employees
55
Website www.telemessage.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

TeleMessage is an Israeli software company based in Petah Tikva, Israel. Founded in 1999 by Guy Levit and Gil Shapira, it provides enterprise messaging, mobile communications archiving and high-volume text messaging services. [1]

Contents

TeleMessage suspended their worldwide services in May 2025 due to a significant cybersecurity incident. Hackers claimed to have breached the company's internal systems, which led to Telemessage halting all services to investigate and contain the incident. [2]

History

TeleMessage was founded in 1999 in Tel Aviv, Israel raising more than 10 million dollars in its first 2 series of investment rounds. [3] After being acquired by Messaging International plc in August 2005, it then went public and was traded on the London Stock Exchange AIM section under the Messaging International name. [4]

It received conditional funding of up to US$900,000 for a joint research and development project for "Secure Rich Communication Services Messaging" in 2015. The funding was provided by the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation. [5]

In 2004, Canadian mobile network operator Rogers Wireless selected TeleMessage SMS to Landline solution, powered by ScanSoft RealSpeak, for its TXT 2 Landline service. [6] American wireless network operator Verizon Wireless started using TeleMessage's SMS service to convert typed text messages into audio messages that play to a recipient's landline phone, launching this service in June 2006. [7] Rogers Communications and the American telco Sprint Nextel were amongst others to launch the mail plugin. [8] In 2013, five years after Comverse launched the TeleMessage PC2Mobile with a Tier-1 European operator, Sprint started selling the TeleMessage offering to allow doctors and clinicians to send HIPAA-compliant texts. [9] Delisted from the British stock exchange and privatized in 2017, it joined the G-Cloud public procurement framework and a financial compliance partner program managed by Verint Systems in the following years. [10]

In 2019, it along with Boku Identity and Deep Labs joined NICE Actimize's X-Sight Marketplace. [11] In February 2020, Proofpoint, a Sunnyvale based enterprise security company partnered with TeleMessage to use their Mobile Archiver service for capturing text, voice and WhatsApp messages. [12] The company is also working with Microsoft in protecting and governing data that is arriving from other Microsoft 365 services. [13]

On February 20, 2024, the firm was acquired by Smarsh. [14] Telemessage's main industry competitor is Symphony Communication.

In May 2025, TeleMessage gained media attention after it was revealed that Mike Waltz, former U.S. National Security Advisor, was using a modified version of open source software Signal called "TM SGNL", created by TeleMessage to archive messages securely. Use predates the 2024 government; a federal contract starting in February 2023 has been found for 'TeleMessage mobile electronic message archiving'. [15] [16] It was later reported that TeleMessage had been hacked, and that chat logs archived by TeleMessage's modified Signal application are not end-to-end encrypted, either in transit to their archival storage location or once at rest. [17]

Products

Patents

Awards

2020, Best Regtech Solution by Finovate Awards. [23]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Castañon, Raul (25 February 2020). "CafeX Communications, Proofpoint, TeleMessage, Staffbase: News Roundup for February". Medium. Archived from the original on 14 August 2025. Retrieved 19 September 2020.
  2. ↑ Breuninger, Kevin (5 May 2025). "Messaging app used by Trump official suspends operations after reported hack". CNBC. Retrieved 2 September 2025.
  3. ↑ צוקר, דפנה (25 June 2000). "Globes Article". Globes. Archived from the original on 8 January 2013.
  4. ↑ "Messaging International PLC acquires Telemessage". Interactive Investor - August 2005. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2009.
  5. ↑ "Messaging International Gets Up To USD900,000 In Funding". MorningstarUK. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  6. ↑ "Rogers Wireless Selects ScanSoft and TeleMessage to Power TXT 2 Landline Service". Speech Technology Magazine. 1 January 2005. Archived from the original on 23 January 2025. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  7. ↑ Nobel, Carmen (1 June 2006). "Verizon Wireless to Give SMS a Voice 628150". Light Reading. Archived from the original on 14 August 2025.
  8. ↑ "Text Messaging Comes to Landlines". PCWorld. 14 August 2008. Archived from the original on 25 January 2015. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  9. ↑ "Sprint Launches Secure Messaging Platforms for Health Care". eWEEK. 28 June 2013. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  10. ↑ Gyarmati, Gyorgy (15 June 2020). "TeleMessage Joins Verint's Financial Compliance Partner Program" . Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  11. ↑ "Boku Identity, Deep Labs, and TeleMessage Join NICE Actimize's X-Sight Marketplace, the Industry's First Financial Crime Management Ecosystem". NICE Systems. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  12. ↑ Castañon, Raul (25 February 2020). "CafeX Communications, Proofpoint, TeleMessage, Staffbase: News Roundup for February". Medium. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  13. ↑ "Microsoft 365 gets next generation Compliance Manager and more". Neowin. Archived from the original on 14 August 2025. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  14. ↑ "Smarsh Completes Acquisition of TeleMessage, Extends Communications Compliance Leadership". Smarsh. Retrieved 29 February 2024.
  15. ↑ Kevin Collier; Ben Goggin (2 May 2025). "Photo appears to show Mike Waltz using Signal-like app that can archive messages". NBC News. One current contract that mentions TeleMessage allocated $2.1 million from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA for 'TELEMESSAGE MOBILE ELECTRONIC MESSAGE ARCHIVING,' beginning in February 2023, with an August 2025 end date.
  16. ↑ Cox, Joseph (1 May 2025). "Mike Waltz Accidentally Reveals Obscure App the Government Is Using to Archive Signal Messages". 404 Media. Retrieved 1 May 2025.
  17. ↑ Cox, Joseph; Lee ·, Micah (4 May 2025). "The Signal Clone the Trump Admin Uses Was Hacked". 404 Media. Archived from the original on 17 May 2025. Retrieved 5 May 2025.
  18. ↑ "Overview: TeleMessage's Mobile Archiving Solution". www.infotech.com. 15 April 2020. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  19. ↑ "Boku Identity, Deep Labs, and TeleMessage Join NICE Actimize's X-Sight Marketplace, the Industry's First Financial Crime Management Ecosystem". Picante Today. 4 November 2019. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  20. ↑ Castañon, Raul (25 February 2020). "CafeX Communications, Proofpoint, TeleMessage, Staffbase: News Roundup for February". Medium. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  21. ↑ United States Patent: 7103348 - Mobile station (MS) message selection identification system
  22. ↑ United States Patent: 7103348 - Mobile station (MS) message selection identification system
  23. ↑ Ferst, Tyler (17 August 2020). "Finalists Announced for the Finovate Awards!". Finovate. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
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