QUIQ Announces $15 Million Second Round; InterWest Partners, BancBoston Ventures, Altos Ventures and Discovery Ventures Invest $15 Million in Strategic e-Community Software Provider

Business Wire, Sept 13, 2000

Business Editors

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 13, 2000

QUIQ(TM), Inc. today announced a $15 million second round of venture capital financing, funded by InterWest Partners and BancBoston Ventures and first-round investors Altos Ventures and Discovery Ventures. QUIQ, a leading provider of strategic e-communities for Global 1000 companies and business-to-business marketplaces, increases its customers' sales and halves their customer acquisition costs. QUIQ's community software encourages virtual conversations between a company's prospective and current customers, vendors, experts and employees to create customer loyalty and satisfaction while reducing service support costs and growing a dynamic knowledge base from the user dialogue.

The $15 million round brings the total venture capital investment in QUIQ to almost $20 million in less than a year. Altos and Discovery funded QUIQ's first round of $3 million last September, which sustained QUIQ through a half dozen customer wins, three of which are announced.

"The multi-billion dollar global ventures that QUIQ targets as customers understand the sales value of community dialogue," said Greg Richardson, chief executive officer of QUIQ. "QUIQ communities increase sales revenues and decrease costs in e-business by translating online the conversations prospective buyers engage in with other buyers and experts before buying anything online or in the real world."

QUIQ-powered communities transform commerce sites into interactive communities in which users gain the insight and information they need to purchase products and services online. QUIQ captures and rates community dialogue between fellow customers, in-house experts, third-party vendors and partners to create the most effective self-service available for users, reduce customer support costs and gather business intelligence. QUIQ transfers that dialogue into the company's knowledge base.

One QUIQ customer, ChipCenter, a b2b marketplace backed by three of the world's multi-billion dollar electronic components companies, attributes a significant increase in online sales to its QUIQ-powered e-community, Ask Us. Chip designers with million-dollar budgets can now research products with other designers and users to make an online purchase confidently.

"QUIQ eliminates the single, pre-selected answer to prospective online buyers' questions, adding credibility to online research and enabling many-to-many dialogue," said Maia Heymann, partner at BancBoston Ventures in Palo Alto, Calif. "Both the technology and business models are infinitely scalable and provide high return on investment."

QUIQ's software is delivered via an application service provider model. Customers pay a one-time setup and implementation fee, plus a monthly service fee to QUIQ.

"E-communities are essential to successful e-business," said Stephen C. Bowsher, general partner at InterWest Partners. "QUIQ provides its customers with a dynamic customer relationship management tool that is effective for the user as well as the company in securing lasting buyer/seller relationships."

QUIQ is defining a new market, which captures part of the projected 2005 $9 trillion e-commerce market, part of the $100 billion CRM market, and part of the $10 billion knowledge management market.

"Altos is confident that, led by this management team and supported by proprietary software, QUIQ can capture a significant share of the global e-community market opportunity," said Ho Nam, Altos general partner.

InterWest has invested in Silicon Graphics (Nasdaq:SGI), Stratacom (Nasdaq:STH.V), CIENA Corporation (Nasdaq:CIEN), ArthroCare Corporation (Nasdaq:ARTC) and Cor Therapeutics (Nasdaq:CORR). BancBoston has invested in Allaire (Nasdaq:ALLR), OnDisplay, Silknet and Versata (Nasdaq:VATA). Altos has invested in Evolve Software (Nasdaq:EVLV), Nonstop Solutions and Nishan Systems. Discovery has invested in Informatica (Nasdaq:INFA), Nishan Systems and E.piphany (Nasdaq:EPNY).

About QUIQ

Founded in 1998, QUIQ, Inc. provides strategic community solutions delivered via an application service provider model to Global 1000 and Net 100 companies including ChipCenter, Ask Jeeves and AlphaSmart. QUIQ solutions enable companies to derive a competitive advantage for product development, marketing and customer service from the user-generated knowledge base QUIQ builds from community dialogue. QUIQ has offices in San Mateo, Calif., and Madison, Wis. For more information, visit the QUIQ web site at www.quiq.com.

Note to Editors: QUIQ is a registered trademark of QUIQ, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.