SnapNames Adds Board of Directors and Advisory Board Members

Business Wire, Dec 21, 2000

Business, Legal and High Tech Editors

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 21, 2000

SnapNames Inc., announced today that it has appointed a new member to its board of directors, and two members to its board of advisors.

SnapNames will protect against commonly experienced domain perils, including cyberjacking, employee sabotage, accidental cancellation due to registration non-renewal, and accidental deletion of a domain name at the Registrar or Registry level. SnapNames' first services are due to launch in early January.

Wade Bradley, the managing partner of EmpireVentures IT Fund I, has joined the board of directors of SnapNames, having made three incremental investments in the company since July 2000. Headquartered in Portland Ore., the EmpireVentures IT Fund I, is a diversified venture capital fund with more than 23 investments in software, Internet, and wireless business-to-business and infrastructure companies. The company provides capital investments and acceleration services to seed, early-mid, and late-stage companies. EmpireVentures selects portfolio companies it anticipates will become leaders in their respective multi-billion dollar markets.

"Since the formation of this management team and our first read of their business plan draft earlier this year, we are extremely excited with the significant milestone accomplishments to date," comments Bradley. "Of the many Internet companies around today, few have demonstrated the execution speed and succession of milestone victories of SnapNames, which frankly seems akin to a catapult-launching a jet off the aircraft carrier deck."

Bradley joins SnapNames' three founding board members, including two who have recently joined the company in operational capacities. Ron Wiener, now chairman and CEO, and Raymond King, now executive vice president, were formerly principals of Venture Mechanics, LLC, which incubated and formed the initial financing for the SnapNames.

Wiener was formerly CEO of PrintBid.com (Nasdaq:IMGX), Distribution Sciences Corp. and Azure Technology. King was formerly founder and CEO of Semaphore, Inc., recently sold to Deltek (Nasdaq:DLTK). A fourth member, Mark Grimes, is founder and CEO of eyescream Interactive, Inc., a prominent eAgency serving clients such as Nextel, Consumer Reports Online, MP3.com, Cyberian Outpost, SimpleNet, Goto.com, Styleclick, and Yoyodyne. A fifth board seat is reserved for an investor from a Series B financing which the company is presently in process of being raised.

Expanding Board of Advisors

SnapNames has added Michael E. Palage and Bob Wiggins to its advisory board, joining Stephen E. Babson and Steven R. Chabinsky on the board of four advisors.

Palage is an experienced intellectual property attorney and an information technology consultant, and speaks regularly on trademark, copyright, Internet, and right of publicity matters. Palage has taught as an adjunct professor at Drexel University and has guest lectured at numerous other universities. Palage is also heavily involved in shaping international policy regarding domain name registrations as the Secretary of the DNSO (Domain Name Support Organization) Registrars Constituency for ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Additionally, Palage is the co-chair of ICANN's Working Group B on the protection of famous trademarks in connection with the domain name registration system.

Wiggins was chairman and CEO of Legal Anywhere, Inc., which was acquired earlier this year by Niku Corporation (Nasdaq:NIKU). Legal Anywhere is a leading provider of Internet-based collaborative solutions for the legal profession. Niku is a leader in Internet-based professional services automation. Before joining Legal Anywhere, Wiggins was president of BLT Technologies, Inc., a provider of prepaid long distance telecommunications services, which was acquired by WorldCom, Inc. in 1996. In Wiggins' last year with BLT, the company had revenue of $165M. Before joining BLT, Wiggins served 13 years as a partner and associate at Stoel Rives LLP. Wiggins is a private investor, and serves on the board of directors of Learning.com, and the advisory board of RapidEdit.com.

Babson is chairman of Stoel Rives LLP, Oregon's largest law firm with 350 attorneys in offices in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Salt Lake City, Boise, and Washington, DC. He has a corporate and securities practice emphasizing in mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, with over 100 acquisition transactions and more than 70 public and private securities transactions completed in the last 10 years. He is also the general partner of Babson Capital Partners LP, a fund emphasizing early stage investments in emerging companies, where he serves as a director and/or advisory board member to several of the fund's 18 portfolio companies. He is a member of the advisory boards of Smart Forest Ventures and The Endeavour Capital Fund.

Chabinsky has been an assistant general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the past five years,(1) and previously was associated with the international law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. He has deep experience in computer security law, personnel law, and public relations. Chabinsky is currently the principal legal advisor to the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), an interagency organization housed at the FBI responsible for detecting, preventing, investigating, and responding to cyber attacks against the nation's most essential assets. He helped develop InfraGard, a computer security information sharing and analysis partnership between the FBI and the private sector, academia, and other federal, state and local agencies.