At OpenGamma, our journey began with a simple but bold idea: that transparency and collaboration could transform how financial institutions manage risk. When we launched in 2009, the industry was dominated by opaque systems and proprietary models. We saw an opportunity to do things differently—and we chose open source as a cornerstone of our strategy.
The decision to go open source wasn’t easy. In the early days, we debated whether financial institutions would trust software they could inspect and modify themselves. But we believed that openness would foster trust, especially in a post-2008 world where confidence in black-box systems had eroded.
We released our analytics engine as open source, and later developed Strata, a comprehensive market risk and analytics library. Written in Java and licensed under Apache 2.0, Strata provided tools for pricing, curve calibration, market data handling, and risk calculations. It was our way of saying: “Here’s what we do—judge us by our code.”
One of our early challenges was convincing clients that open source didn’t mean unsupported or unreliable. We remember a meeting with a major asset manager who asked, “If it’s free, how do we know it works?” That question stuck with us. It pushed us to build a commercial platform on top of our open source foundations—one that offered enterprise-grade analytics, support, and integration.
Another struggle was internal. Balancing community contributions with commercial priorities required discipline. There were moments when we questioned whether maintaining open source projects was sustainable. But each time a developer from outside our company submitted a meaningful improvement, we were reminded why we started this journey.
While derivatives risk analytics were our initial focus, we quickly realized that asset managers needed more. Over time, we expanded our platform to cover:
These additions weren’t just feature requests—they were strategic responses to the evolving needs of our clients. We worked closely with asset managers to understand their workflows and built solutions that integrated seamlessly.
Implementing our strategy required more than code. It meant building a team that believed in openness, investing in documentation and community engagement, and staying true to our principles even when it was hard.
We’ve raised over $70 million in funding, partnered with leading institutions, and now manage over $130 billion in initial margin. But what we’re most proud of is the trust we’ve earned—not just from our clients, but from the broader financial technology community.
As markets continue to evolve, we remain committed to transparency, collaboration, and innovation. Open source isn’t just a strategy—it’s part of our identity. And we believe it’s the key to building a more resilient and efficient financial system.