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| Synchroon | |
|---|---|
| Name | Synchroon |
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Headquarters | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Key people | Jeroen van Dijk (CEO), Maria Kovács (CTO) |
| Products | Cloud networking, SD-WAN, IoT platforms |
| Revenue | €420 million (2024 est.) |
| Employees | 2,400 (2024) |
Synchroon
Synchroon is a multinational telecommunications and network services company headquartered in Amsterdam. It operates in cloud networking, edge computing, and managed connectivity for enterprise and public-sector clients across Europe, North America, and Asia. Synchroon has grown through a mix of organic expansion and acquisitions, positioning itself among competitors in network orchestration and Internet backbone services.
The company name derives from a coined formation intended to evoke coordination and timing similar to chronometric notions used in navigation and computing. The name was selected during early branding workshops involving advisers from Interbrand, Wolff Olins, and Pentagram who worked with founders influenced by terminology in chronometry and synchronization standards such as IEEE 1588. Early legal counsel from Freshfields and Allen & Overy handled trademark filings across the Benelux, European Union Intellectual Property Office, and United States Patent and Trademark Office. The name has been referenced in trademark disputes before tribunals in The Hague and arbitration panels under the Rules of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce.
Synchroon was founded in 2010 by a team of engineers and executives who previously held roles at Ericsson, Nokia, and KPN. In 2012 Synchroon opened its first major datacenter collaboration with Equinix in Amsterdam and signed its first SD-WAN contract with ING. The 2014 expansion into managed IoT services involved partnerships with Bosch and Siemens, while a 2016 strategic investment round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures financed a transatlantic fiber build alongside work with Liberty Global. In 2018 Synchroon acquired the European networking unit of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, and in 2019 it launched a series of edge nodes modeled after efforts by Cloudflare and Akamai. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated enterprise uptake of Synchroon services, leading to a 2021 cloud orchestration deal with Deutsche Telekom and a 2022 managed security agreement with BT. Executive changes have included the appointment of Jeroen van Dijk as CEO in 2020 and Maria Kovács as CTO in 2021 after tenures at Cisco and Juniper Networks.
Synchroon offers managed networking, SD-WAN, cloud interconnect, edge computing, IoT connectivity, and cybersecurity services. Flagship products include the Synchroon Orchestrator platform for multicloud routing, an enterprise SD-Edge appliance rivaling offerings from Cisco Meraki and VMware, and an IoT hub used by automotive suppliers like Continental and Daimler for telemetry aggregation. The company provides connectivity solutions for financial institutions such as HSBC and BNP Paribas that require low-latency links to exchanges like Euronext and NASDAQ. In public-sector arenas Synchroon supplies private network infrastructure to municipalities, collaborating with Siemens Healthineers and Philips on healthcare networking deployments. Additional portfolio items consist of WAN optimization, DDoS mitigation comparable to Arbor Networks and Radware, and managed services certified under ISO/IEC 27001 and SOC 2 frameworks.
Synchroon's technology stack encompasses software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), orchestration frameworks compatible with OpenStack and Kubernetes, and precision timing protocols derived from IEEE 1588 for low-latency trading corridors. Its infrastructure includes dark-fiber leases and ownership in nodes co-located with Equinix, Digital Realty, and Interxion facilities; edge PoPs placed near Internet exchanges such as AMS-IX, LINX, and DE-CIX; and undersea fiber partnerships with companies like Seaborn and SubCom. The company develops proprietary telemetry based on Prometheus and Grafana integrations and contributes code to projects hosted by the Linux Foundation and Open Networking Foundation. Synchroon also operates a security operations center (SOC) modeled on standards from NIST and ENISA, and maintains compliance programs aligned with GDPR and Schrems II guidance.
Synchroon competes with Tier 1 carriers and network service providers including Orange Business Services, Vodafone Business, AT&T, and Colt Technology Services, while also aligning with cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud for direct interconnect offerings. Strategic partners have included Ericsson for 5G private networks, Nokia for optical transport, and VMware for SD-WAN virtualization. Financial backers and investors have encompassed venture firms and strategic investors with interests in fiber and infrastructure; Synchroon has worked with banks like ING and BNP Paribas for debt facilities. The company targets regulated industries—banking, healthcare, and utilities—and leverages certifications from PCI DSS and ISO to secure contracts with customers including Allianz and Siemens.
Synchroon has faced criticism over spectrum allocation and municipal permitting in several European cities where rapid edge-node deployments intersected with local regulations, prompting disputes adjudicated by municipal councils and national telecommunications authorities. Privacy advocates and civil-society groups such as European Digital Rights have raised concerns about data routing and retention policies tied to cross-border interconnects in relation to Schrems II and US CLOUD Act implications. Labor groups in Belgium and the Netherlands protested workforce restructuring after the 2018 acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise assets, with negotiations involving trade unions and works councils. Additionally, competitors and watchdogs have questioned elements of Synchroon's pricing transparency for peering and transit services, leading to reviews by market regulators in the European Commission and national telecom regulators.
Category:Telecommunications companies