Also mentioned on page C20 of April 17 Wall Street Journal...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Karen Logsdon
AvantGo, Inc.
650-655-4029
klogsdon@avantgo.com
or
Angelique Faul
Evans Partners/for AvantGo
(650) 595-8757
afaul@evanspartners.com
AVANTGO COMPLETES $31 MILLION MEZZANINE FINANCING
Goldman Sachs, American Express, Ford Motor Company, McKessonHBOC and Research In Motion (RIM) Accelerate Growth of Business-to-Business Mobile Internet Company
SAN MATEO, Calif. - April 17, 2000 - AvantGo, Inc. today announced that it has secured $31 million in mezzanine financing from strategic partners and private equity investors. The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. led the investment, along with participation from American Express, Ford Motor Company, McKessonHBOC, Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) and existing AvantGo investors, 21st Century Internet Venture Partners, H&Q Venture Associates, Adobe Ventures and Fayez Sarofim & Co. AvantGo offers mobile infrastructure software and services that enable businesses to use handheld devices and Internet-enabled phones to build tighter relationships with their customers and employees.
"With this team of world-class strategic investors, we will further expand the distribution and widespread availability of AvantGo on a broad range of mobile devices. As a result, our business partners will be able to connect with their customers more easily and more quickly than ever before," said Richard Owen, AvantGo CEO. "This mezzanine round will allow AvantGo to substantially increase operational infrastructure, broaden marketing and business development efforts, launch new products and expand staffing, positioning the company to better serve our enterprise customers and media partners."
AvantGo enables its customers to publish content and deploy interactive applications by extending their web-based applications, personalized content and hosted application services to mobile devices. Delivering the mobile Internet to both wireless users and those interacting with applications and content offline, the company's enterprise customers include large, Global 1000 companies, such as British Gas and Catholic Healthcare West, and leading media publishers, such as The New York Times, FOXSports.com, ft.com and Vicinity Corporation. Today, hundreds of thousands of individuals are using AvantGo's free mobile Internet service to access interactive and personalized content from the web and more than 350 optimized channels.
Randall Blumenthal, managing director for Goldman Sachs, said: "We believe AvantGo is a leader in one of the markets with the greatest growth opportunities - the wireless Internet. AvantGo has created a leading mobile Internet solution for individuals and enterprises and we believe the company has the strong management team and strategy in place to further extend its reach into the business-to-business marketplace."
"RIM is well focused on the wireless Internet market and sees AvantGo as another key contributor in this space," said Jim Balsillie, CEO at Research In Motion Ltd. "We welcome the opportunity to invest in the company and look forward to working with AvantGo to bring their solution to RIM Wireless Handhelds."
About AvantGo
AvantGo, Inc., the business-to-business mobile Internet company, wirelessly extends Internet-based content and applications to handheld computers and Internet-enabled phones. AvantGo Enterprise Interactive Server and AvantGo Enterprise Publisher enable global organizations to build valuable relationships with their employees and customers by putting essential content and services at their fingertips - any time, anywhere. The AvantGo mobile Internet service allows media publishers to easily extend their presence beyond desktop computers to individuals on the go without modifying their existing publishing systems. Using AvantGo, today hundreds of thousands of individuals are accessing free, interactive and personalized content from more than 350 leading media providers and thousands of user-submitted sites. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at www.avantgo.com or call 650-638-3399.
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AvantGo, AvantGo Enterprise and the AvantGo logo are trademarks of AvantGo, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. |
