FOLIOfn And OffRoad Capital Create Alliance Allowing Investors Online Access to Private and Public Investing
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 21, 2000--OffRoad Capital (www.offroadcapital.com), the company that allows access to private equity investments, and FOLIOfn (www.foliofn.com), the online brokerage that created FOLIO investing(SM), have announced a strategic relationship which gives FOLIOfn's customers access to private equity investments through OffRoad's marketplace.
"Our companies share a common commitment to using technology to provide investors with more access, information and choice in managing their investments," explained Stephen D. Pelletier, CEO of OffRoad Capital. "With this new alliance, and our existing alliances with Charles Schwab, Robertson Stephens and Mayfield Fund, we're expanding access to the private capital markets to a broader universe of accredited individuals, intermediaries and institutions."
"OffRoad and FOLIOfn are both using technology to develop innovative new financial products and services that benefit consumers. Now with this partnership, FOLIOfn's customers can easily take advantage of OffRoad's services," said Steven M.H. Wallman, founder and CEO of FOLIOfn and also a member of OffRoad's board of directors.
"The wave of entrepreneurship sweeping the globe is creating unprecedented investment opportunities in the private capital markets. OffRoad is leveling the playing field for individuals, intermediaries and institutions who want to invest in private equities by providing access to pre-screened investment opportunities, standardized communications, and opportunities to interact with other members of OffRoad's investor network," OffRoad's Pelletier said.
OffRoad has completed 11 private equity transactions -- completely online -- in its first full year of operation. The firm recently launched marketing efforts designed to educate financial advisors and intermediaries about OffRoad Capital and private equity.
FOLIOfn was founded in 1998 by Wallman, a former commissioner with the Securities and Exchange Commission and an early advocate of using technology to benefit investors and financial markets. FOLIOfn's proprietary system, FOLIO investing, gives investors the diversification and simplicity of buying mutual funds with the control and tax savings of direct stock ownership. FOLIO investing allows investors to buy and trade entire stock portfolios, called "FOLIOs," with just a few clicks of the mouse. Investors can purchase three "Ready-to-go" FOLIOs, modify those FOLIOs, or create their own FOLIOs of one to 50 stocks based on their goals and preferences -- a+l for a low, flat fee of $29.95 per month.
"Consumers needed an alternative to the time-consuming task of trying to select `winning' stocks and to the high costs of owning mutual funds," Wallman said. "FOLIO investing is that alternative. We designed our system with the best interests of individual investors and investment professionals in mind."
According to Pelletier, "In focusing on using the Internet to facilitate private equity financing,`OffRoad is re-inventing a part of the securities business that has always suffered from a lack of organization and structure. There have always been private companies seeking capital and investors willing to invest, but until OffRoad no efficient marketplace that could bring them together."
About OffRoad Capital
OffRoad Capital, founded in 1997, has created an online private securities marketplace, using the Internet to bring together the issuers, intermediaries and investors of private securities offerings. The OffRoad Capital proprietary marketplace features: information transparency; a unique, Web-enabled method for obtaining and sharing investment information; live, interactive management presentations; and a proprietary pricing, order and allocation mechanism. The company has strategic alliances with Robertson Stephens, Mayfield Fund, and Charles Schwab. All activities relating to the purchase or sale of securities, including the qualification of and offerings to accredited investors, are conducted by a wholly owned broker-dealer subsidiary of OffRoad Capital Corporation, OffRoad Securities, Inc. OffRoad Securities is a member of NASD and SIPC.
OffRoad Capital is headquartered at 50 Fremont Street in San Francisco and also has offices New York and Cambridge, Mass. For more information, visit www.offroadcapital.com or call 415/796-5000.
About FOLIOfn
FOLIOfn, Inc. -- www.foliofn.com -- together with its wholly owned brokerage subsidiary FOLIOfn Investments, Inc. is harnessing the power ofthe Internet to enable individual and institutional investors to invest and trade better, smarter, and easier. FOLIO investing, the first in the series of smart financial services from FOLIOfn, offers a whole new way to invest and trade, combining many of the best qualities of mutual funds, traditional brokerage services, and online trading. In addition, FOLIOfn Institutional is distributing FOLIO investing to financial advisors and the institutional market. FOLIOfn's financial backers include PSINet (Nasdaq: PSIX), one of the nation's leading Internet Service Providers, Mayfield Fund, one of the country's elite venture capital partnerships, meVC Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund I (NYSE: MVC), a venture capital fund that provides individual investors access to private equity investments, and American Century Ventures, the strategic investment group for American Century, a mutual fund, brokerage, and investment services company serving nearly 2 million individual and institutional investors and managing more than $110 billion in assets. FOLIO investing is offered through FOLIOfn Investments, Inc., a member of NASD and SIPC. FOLIOfn and its subsidiaries are based in Vienna, Va. Unlike FOLIOs, mutual funds are managed by a paid fund manager and registered with the SEC. FOLIO investing, like all investing, involves risk including the loss of principal.
CONTACT:
OffRoad Capital
Pat Harden or Kim Dobbins, 415/796-5200 |
