Fw: Update on Moreover.com

MOREOVER.COM, "WEBFEED" LEADER, CLOSES $21 MILLION FIRST ROUND OF FUNDING, LED BY WIT SOUNDVIEW VENTURES AND REUTERS

Company is changing the face of news delivery on the Internet

New York - June 12, 2000 - Moreover.com (www.moreover.com), the world's most comprehensive online information aggregation service, today announced it has closed $21 million in first round funding, led by Wit SoundView Ventures, a unit of Wit SoundView Group, Inc., and Reuters Venture Capital. Advance.net, the Internet arm of Condé Nast parent company Advance Publications, Inc., and Atlas Venture, the international venture capital firm, also participated in the round. Further financial details of the investments were not disclosed.

Moreover.com has developed the world's largest collection of "webfeeds" - customized, categorized headline feeds that draw content from around the Web. The company allows Web publishers to automatically integrate timely news headlines directly into their Web site. Moreover.com has developed over 270 topical webfeeds, each featuring headlines that link in near real-time to full text articles from over 1,500 sources around the Internet.

"The participation of Reuters, a global media player and the largest supplier of news online, is a great vindication of our webfeed model," said Nick Denton, CEO and founder of Moreover.com. "Our model is based on the fact that many Web sites lack the expertise and resources to generate the dynamic, relevant information and headlines that is required to win repeat visitors. Our proprietary technology eases the burden on Intranet producers and Webmasters."

According to Denton, Moreover.com has become a trusted, valued provider of dynamic information to some 50,000 Web sites. With the support of investors who hold leading market positions in the Internet, venture capital and media industries, Moreover.com expects to be featured on more than 400,000 sites by the end of 2000. Moreover.com will use the funding to diversify beyond news, by aggregating and distributing other types of dynamic content like audio, video and book reviews.

The Investors Speak

David Lockwood, co-CEO of Reuters Venture Capital, said: "Moreover.com has built one of the leading content aggregation businesses for business on the Web today and has the potential to scale even further. Moreover.com's management has a clear vision of where to take the company and a proven track record of executing that vision. As part of the portfolio of Reuters Venture Capital companies, Moreover.com fits strategically with our focus on e-commerce and infrastructure companies that are leading the development of the new economy."

Established in 1995, Reuters Venture Capital is a leading investor in e-commerce and infrastructure businesses globally. To date, Reuters Venture Capital has funded 56 companies, including Yahoo, phone.com, March 1, Digimarc, Verisign, Infoseek, Fantastic and others. Reuters Venture Capital invests to leverage the synergies with Reuters and its existing portfolio of leading e-commerce and infrastructure companies throughout the world, particularly in the media and financial industries.

"We have a proven track record of identifying and supporting the most innovative and sound businesses on the Internet," said Edward Sim, managing director of Wit SoundView Ventures. "Moreover represents the next generation of information delivery. It has a highly scalable technology focused on a huge market opportunity, where any dynamic information can be turned into a webfeed."

Wit SoundView Ventures is the venture capital unit of online investment banking firm Wit SoundView Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:WITC). Wit SoundView Ventures' focuses primarily on early stage investments in Internet and technology companies and actively works with management to build market-leading companies. Representative portfolio companies include Xdrive, Gurunet, Expertcity, iWon.com, Priceline's Webhouse Club, and MaterialNet. The Wit SoundView Ventures management team also manages Dawntreader LP, an independent early stage fund, whose portfolio companies include iPrint, LivePerson, Gurunet, Whatshotnow.com and Expertcity.

Lockwood, Sim and Jeff Jarvis, president and creative director of Advance.net, will join the Moreover.com Board of Directors.

Moreover.com has a strong roster of clients and partners, ranging from small company Web sites and newspaper sites to major portals and Intranet sites for Fortune 500 corporations. Among the companies working with Moreover.com are Microsoft, Ernst & Young, CompuServe, Wells Fargo, Viador, National Semiconductor and Mercedes Benz.

About Moreover.com

Moreover.com (http://www.moreover.com) is a venture-backed Internet company with offices in San Francisco, California and London, England. Established in 1999, Moreover.com is the world's most comprehensive online information aggregation service. Moreover.com's news feeds combine the depth of established databases with the flexibility and efficiency of the Web. With proprietary software that spiders more than 1,500 editorial sources, Moreover.com provides "webfeeds" of headline links in more than 270 categories. All the webfeeds displayed on Moreover.com's news portal are also available free off the site to webmasters - in formats such as webfeed, email, and XML.

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