| KX Systems Inc. | |
| Trading Name: | Kx Systems |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Software & Tech Services |
| Successors: | --> |
| Founded: | in Palo Alto, California |
| Hq Location City: | New York, New York |
| Hq Location Country: | United States |
| Num Locations: | 14 offices[1] |
| Num Locations Year: | 2018 |
| Profit: | --> |
| Profit Year: | --> |
| Parent: | FD Technologies plc |
KX is a privately owned software company that sells a time series database kdb+, used for financial modeling and data analysis, and its associated proprietary programming language q.[2] [3]
It was founded in 1993 by Janet Lustgarten and Arthur Whitney,[4] the developer of the K programming language. In 2014, First Derivatives increased their ownership interest to 65 percent; in 2018, the company (now FD Technologies plc) announced plans to buy out the remaining shares of KX.[5] KX has offices in New York City, London, England, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.[6]
In 1993, Whitney and Lustgarten joined to commercialize the k programming platform Whitney had created after building the A+ language and other trading systems at Morgan Stanley.[3] [7] The purpose of the software was to access and explore large data volumes in financial services computer systems.[8] Initially, Kx Systems had an exclusive contract with Swiss global financial services firm UBS to provide them with the K language. In 1998, the contract with UBS expired and the firm launched the kdb+ database. As part of kdb+, Whitney developed a new language named q that operated with k and uses English keywords.[9]
In 1999, the company reached a marketing agreement with a Northern Ireland based firm, First Derivatives.;[10] it opened an office in Manhattan in 2002,[11] Germany and Japan in 2003,[12] and Hong Kong in 2009.[13] In 2014, First Derivatives purchased a 65 percent share of Kx Systems.[14] Kx became a technology supplier to NASA's Frontier Development Lab.[15] In July 2018, FD Technologies bought all remaining shares in KX Systems that it did not already hold;[16] Whitney and Lustgarten then went on to found Shakti.[17] [18]