Media Technology Ventures Closes $170 Million Seed Fund

Business Wire, Feb 7, 2000

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 7, 2000

Dow Jones &Company, Procter &Gamble and J.P. Morgan

Join 27 Other World-Class Corporate Investors in the Media Technology Ventures Family of Strategic Corporate Venture Funds

Media Technology Ventures, a family of early and mid-stage venture capital funds investing in digital commerce and enabling technology companies, today announced it has closed Media Technology Ventures III, L.P. (MTV III), the company's third corporate partnering venture fund.

MTV III includes investments from 20 major multi-national corporations including new investors Dow Jones &Company, Procter &Gamble, JP Morgan, A& Networks, Marks &Spencer, Diageo, Rogers Communications and Best Buy. The new MTV III fund brings the total capital under management to $400 million, all from multi-national corporations with a strategic interest in the firm's investment focus.

Twelve of the corporate investors in MTV III are return investors that have participated in the earlier Media Technology Ventures funds, signaling the firm's proven success and continued leadership in leveraging cooperative relationships as a focal point for collaboration between corporate investors and Media Technology Ventures' portfolio companies. MTV III will be managed under Allegis Capital, the management company for the family of Media Technology venture funds.

&uot;With this newly closed fund adding to our strategic group of investors, we continue to strengthen our market position as the leading venture firm specializing in strategic corporate partnering,&uot; said Robert R. Ackerman, Jr., managing director, Media Technology Ventures. &uot;We continue to align ourselves with the best corporations that are eager to invest in the technology convergence of computing, content, communication and commerce, and with $170 million in our new MTV III fund, we are poised to extend that leadership position even further.&uot;

To date, Media Technology Ventures has provided early-stage funding for 23 leading start-up companies including Quokka Sports, Medscape, Sandpiper Networks (Digital Island), Talk City, iBeam Broadcasting and mPower.

&uot;Media Technology Ventures clearly has a strong track record in creating strategic corporate investment opportunities,&uot; said Gordon Crovitz, Sr. Vice President, Electronic Publishing of Dow Jones. &uot;We look forward to Dow Jones' participation in MTV III as a core element of our strategy to aggressively leverage our $150 million in Internet revenues (1999). For Dow Jones, MTV III should help us further increase our exposure to new technologies and new companies and strengthen our market intelligence capacity-all while creating financial opportunity for our shareholders.&uot;

&uot;In the Internet economy, cash alone is insufficient to building a successful company. Corporate partnerships are a critical ingredient to building and maintaining a long term competitive advantage,&uot; said Alan Ramadan, CEO of Quokka Sports. &uot;The Media Technology Ventures team really delivered on their promise of value-add, which we see as having a significant impact on the overall success of our company.&uot;

In addition to Robert Ackerman, the Media Technology investment team includes Barry M. Weinman, Jonathan E. Funk, Peter H. Gardner and Philippe Bouissou, Ph.D. and maintains offices in San Francisco, Los Altos and Los Angeles.

About Media Technology Ventures

Formed in 1996, Media Technology Ventures provides seed and early-stage funding to start-up Internet companies that are building the new digital economy, including electronic commerce, media convergence, and enabling infrastructure communications technologies. It has pioneered the strategy of partnering major corporate investors with entrepreneurial start-up companies to create mutual strategic advantages for its portfolio companies and corporate partners alike. Strategic corporate investors include A& Networks, American Express, Best Buy, The Boeing Company, Comcast, Diageo, Dow Jones &Company, Freedom Communications, Fujitsu, GE Equity Capital, GE Financial Assurance, GIMV, Hallmark, Hearst Interactive Media, JP Morgan, Justsystem, Kubota, Marks &Spencer, Mattel, MediaOne, Motorola, NBC, Procter &Gamble, Rogers Communications, Sonera, Siemens, Sun Microsystems, Telecom Italia, Thomson Multimedia and WPP Group.