BlackArrow Adds Larry Kramer to Board, Bolsters Executive Team with Former Adobe and Knight Ridder Executives

Business Wire, Oct 15, 2007

NEW YORK -- BlackArrow, a provider of multiplatform ad-management systems for viewer-controlled video, today announced the appointment of Larry Kramer, MarketWatch founder and former-CBS Digital Media president, to its board of directors.

The company also announced that former-Knight Ridder executive Sharon Mandell has joined BlackArrow as senior vice president and chief technology officer, along with Chris Hock and Patrick Carter as vice president, product management and vice president, operations, respectively. In their roles they provide additional media and technology expertise, and add further strategic product development and operations-management expertise to the company.

"Larry Kramer brings a wealth of experience developing successful new media businesses, strategies and relationships that will prove invaluable to BlackArrow as we launch our multiplatform video ad-management system," said Dean Denhart, president and CEO, BlackArrow. "Likewise, Sharon Mandell is a highly regarded Silicon Valley technologist who brings over 20 years' experience in technology development and strategic implementation to BlackArrow."

"Chris Hock and Patrick Carter bring management, product and technology talents to our team, and further enable BlackArrow to advance its product design and roadmap, and to deploy it securely and successfully," continued Denhart. "We expect their work to contribute substantially to BlackArrow's success."

Larry Kramer is senior advisor at Polaris Venture Partners, a national venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management. From March 2005 until November 2006, he served as the first president of CBS Digital Media, a new division he created to integrate all new media operations for the network. Prior to joining CBS, Kramer was chairman, CEO and founder of MarketWatch, Inc. (CBS MarketWatch) until its sale to Dow Jones in January 2005. Kramer was also vice president of Data Broadcasting Corp., following its acquisition of his company, DataSport, Inc. Previously, Kramer spent more than 20 years in journalism as an award-winning reporter and editor for the San Francisco Examiner the Washington Post and the Trenton (N.J.) Times.

In her previous roles as vice president of technology of Knight Ridder, Inc. and CTO of Knight Ridder Digital, Sharon Mandell oversaw the strategic development, implementation and operations of technology across the company's operations. Before joining Knight Ridder, she was vice president of technology for Tribune Publishing, and the first chief technology officer of Tribune Interactive. Previously, Mandell was co-founder of Plannet Crafters Inc., a developer of award-winning software utilities for Microsoft Windows.

Prior to joining BlackArrow, Chris Hock was group product manager for the Dynamic Media Organization at Adobe Systems, following its acquisition of Macromedia. At Adobe, he managed the Flash video delivery business and led the creation and launch of various media-delivery related products and services including Flash Media Server, Flash Media Encoder and the Flash Video Streaming Service. Previously, Hock co-founded RedSpark, Inc., an Autodesk venture that developed hosted enterprise-collaboration solutions. Hock also spent eight years with Autodesk in senior product management and sales engineer roles. He was named one of the "Top 40 IPTV Movers and Shakers of 2007" by Daily IPTV.

Before joining BlackArrow, Patrick Carter was senior director of Web infrastructure for Knight Ridder Digital, where he led day-to-day technology operations. Carter managed vendor selection and management, as well as research and implementation of new technologies and products. He was also responsible for IT Sarbanes-Oxley compliance for websites, e-commerce products and internal IT. In addition, Carter was instrumental in establishing the company's publishing platform, defining technology infrastructure needs and leading the technology implementation of major website redesigns. Prior to Knight Ridder Digital, Carter was Internet technology manager for the San Jose Mercury News.

About BlackArrow, Inc.

BlackArrow provides multiplatform ad management for viewer-controlled video. The company's ad-management platform streamlines the complexities of video-based advertising -- helping ad agencies reach target audiences, and maximizing new advertising revenues for content providers and distributors. BlackArrow is led by an experienced team of executives from the advertising, television and digital media industries, and is backed by Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), Comcast Interactive Capital, Intel Capital (Nasdaq: INTC), Mayfield Fund and Polaris Venture Partners. The company is privately held, with offices in New York City and San Mateo, Calif. http://www.blackarrow.tv