Interactive Pictures Receives $28 Million in Financing Round; GE Equity, Liberty Media, American Express, Motorola, Cendant and JP Morgan Back Leader in Internet Photography

Business Wire, March 24, 1999

SAN JOSE, Calif. and OAK RIDGE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 1999--Interactive Pictures Corporation(TM), the world leader in photography for the Internet, today announced that it has received $28 million in growth capital. The combined $28 million was provided through GE Equity (NYSE:GE), Liberty Digital, a division of Liberty Media Group (NYSE:LMG.A and LMG.B), American Express Company- Travel Related Services Company, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Express Company (NYSE:AXP), Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT), Cendant Corporation (NYSE:CD) and J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM). Other notable investors include Invision AG, a European Internet and communications investor, Edens Capital Ltd., a UK-based investment bank, Stephens Capital and individual investors including John Hendricks, CEO of Discovery Communications and Laban Jackson who join previous notable individual investors including Jim Kennedy, CEO of Cox Enterprises.

According to Jeffrey H. Coats, Managing Director, GE Equity, "Interactive Pictures has all the qualities we look for in an investment -- seasoned management, a scalable business plan and incredible products. IPIX technology is bringing interactivity and true multimedia to the Internet."

Through its reinvention of photography, Interactive Pictures has already begun to replace millions of the 72 billion flat photographs taken each year. The company's technology can "transport" the viewer anywhere -- whether it be a stadium seat in 3Com Park, an apartment in New York's SOHO district, the inside of a new Honda Accord or directly into NASA's Discovery Space Shuttle. The future of the Internet will involve multimedia-rich content, rapid delivery of information and of course, interactivity. The promise of personal interactivity gives companies a new way to reach out to the consumer and also to have that consumer grasp a personalized experience each time a connection to the Internet is made. Interactive Pictures addresses the consumer, business-to-business and business-to-consumer levels of interactivity. In the past year, more than 1,500 Web sites have adopted IPIX technology to "teleport" consumers into an interactive, self-navigating 360 degree by 360 degree image. Interactive Pictures is redefining how consumers and businesses interact with photography and in the near future, video.

"IPIX images have brought interactive imaging to thousands of web sites in the past year. This additional investment will advance our technology development and accelerate the adoption of IPIX photography worldwide," said Jim Phillips, chairman and CEO of Interactive Pictures Corporation. "Our investors feel as we do -- that IPIX will be the true visual connection between e-commerce, entertainment and the ubiquitous viewing of interactive content on the Internet."

Interactive Pictures' customers are leaders in the real estate, travel/tourism, hospitality, entertainment, media/journalism and e-commerce industries which include Microsoft, AOL, Disney, Hilton Hotels, Toyota, Intel, Rent.Net, E!Online, Coldwell Banker, CNN, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Discovery Communications, Ticketmaster , the NFL, and the NBA, to name a few.

John Hendricks, chairman and CEO of Discovery Communications said, "Interactive Pictures has come so far in only two years, however, its most exciting days are ahead. Their creative evolution is similar to where Thomas Edison was when he invented the movie camera for the video taping of plays -- just the tip of the iceberg. As IPIX technology and V360 are introduced to more media-centric developers, a new generation of photography applications will emerge with Interactive Pictures' technology as the key enabler."

"We are excited to be an investor in Interactive Pictures," said Larry Kutscher, Vice President of Interactive Enterprise Development at American Express. "The company's powerful IPIX image technology can help us deliver exciting, new, next-generation Internet products that transform our customer's experience online."

Driven by previous equity investments from Motorola, Discovery Communications, Advance Publications and MediaOne Group, Interactive Pictures is today led by technology industry veteran, Jim Phillips. Phillips' has pioneered several communications industry revolutions in his more than 20 years of experience. Phillips was president and co-founder of SkyTel Corporation, the world's leading provider of wireless messaging and also held the position of corporate vice president of Motorola's Multimedia Group where Motorola established itself as the world's leading provider of cable modem products. In addition, the Interactive Pictures' executive management team includes president and Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Peters. As Eastman Kodak's general manager of Digital Imaging and vice president of Digital Applied Imaging, Peters was responsible for the commercialization and delivery of all of Kodak's consumer digital cameras and inkjet media.

"In the past year, the use of IPIX technology has exploded on the Internet. As a long time investor in Interactive Pictures, we are especially optimistic about the future of this revolutionary technology," said Randy Battat, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Motorola's Internet and Networking Group. "IPIX images provide an interactive experience which energizes today's Internet and scales to emerging broadband networks with high resolution images and V360 `steerable video'."