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INTERNET.COM VENTURE FUND I ADDS THREE NEW COMPANIES TO ITS VENTURE INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO-- GOPDA.COM, BUYBUDDY.COM AND WORKZ.COM
(Westport, CT--October 18, 1999)--internet.com Venture Fund I LLC, the affiliated venture arm of internet.com Corporation (Nasdaq: INTM), today announced that it has made venture investments in three additional early-stage Internet companies which include the GoPDA.com network, BuyBuddy.com and workz.com. The investments are part of internet.com Venture Fund I's ongoing effort to further advance early-stage content and e-commerce Web site properties. BuyBuddy.com is also supported by a strategic marketing alliance with internet.com, the Fund's portfolio manager."The market opportunities for the services and content offered by these companies are unparalleled. We are confident that they have the first-mover advantage and vision necessary to become major players in their respective technology and e-commerce categories," said Alan M. Meckler, principal of internet.com Venture Fund I and chairman and CEO of internet.com Corporation. "internet.com Venture Fund I will provide these companies with the financial, strategic and technological expertise needed to further develop their initiatives."
The three investments include:
GoPDA.com (http://www.gopda.com): A network of sites dedicated to serving the expanding handheld computing community, GoPDA.com provides handheld users with a comprehensive collection of mobile computing hardware, software and content. Core sites include PalmCentral.com, for developers and users of Palm Computing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and CEStation.com, for developers and users of Microsoft Windows CE devices. The network has established strategic alliances with 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS), Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and AT &T; (NYSE: T).
BuyBuddy.com (http://www.buybuddy.com): BuyBuddy.com is a leading, independent personal online shopping agent offering consumers an easy and intuitive solution for finding computer-based products on the Web. By focusing on finding the best products and solutions for online consumers, BuyBuddy.com offers expertise and real-time pricing on more than 6,000 hardware, software and computer peripheral products. Participating merchants include Buy.com, NECX, Cyberian Outpost (Nasdaq: COOL), HardwareStreet, Flycast and ComputersByNet among others. BuyBuddy.com's consumer-centric approach assists the Internet newbie and the technologically sophisticated consumer in making informed decisions by offering reviews, unbiased comparisons, real-time pricing and more. The site is supported by an extensive marketing alliance with internet.com, the Fund's portfolio manager. BuyBuddy.com is run principally by Michael Furdyk and Michael Hayman, two of the founders of the MyDesktop.com Network.
workz.com (http://www.workz.com): Dedicated to the small business market, workz.com is a one-stop portal providing comprehensive information and services, e-commerce resources, marketing tools, high-quality content and peer-to-peer networking to help build, manage, and promote an online business. Member sites include: InternationalWorkz.com, MerchantWorkz.com, BannerWorkz.com, SearchWorkz.com and DomainWorkz.com. The portal has established strategic alliances with American Express (NYSE: AXP), Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HWP), AT &T; (NYSE: T), FedEx (NYSE: FDX) and ShopNow.com (Nasdaq: SPNW).
internet.com Venture Fund I was formed to invest in early-stage online content providers serving targeted business-to-business markets that follow the strategy of, but are not competitive to, internet.com. internet.com is one of the fund�s investors and is the portfolio manager. internet.com will continue to follow the path of CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI) and Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) with the benefit of being a public operating company in the Internet space that also extends value to its stockholders by having a successful Internet venture capital arm. Other internet.com Venture Fund I LLC portfolio investments include CreativePlanet.com, NetEquipment.com, MLX.com, Tutor.com and MDLinx.com.
internet.com Corporation (Nasdaq: INTM) owns and operates internet.com, the E-Business and Internet Technology Network which includes 77 Web sites, 65 e-mail newsletters, 99 online discussion forums, and 71 moderated e-mail discussion lists for Internet industry and Internet technology professionals, Web developers and experienced Internet users. internet.com's global presence includes editions in Canada, China, the United Kingdom, Arabia, Australia, Asia, France, Japan and Israel.
"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding internet.com Corporation's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Prospectus dated June 25, 1999, Annual Report or Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year.
For more information contact:
Nicole Catalano
(203) 341-2870
[email protected]
BuyBuddy.com:
Cyrus Mavalwala
Advanced Technology Group
Fleishman-Hillard Canada Inc.
Tel: 416-214-0521 ext. 223
[email protected]
All current internet.com Corp. press releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.internet.com/corporate/press.html.