Investment in Another Company

NewMedia SPARK PLC 26 October 2000 NewMedia SPARK invests £1m in leading analytical software company IntelligentApps NewMedia SPARK Plc, Europe's leading quoted early stage technology investment company, today announces that it has invested £1,000,000 in IntelligentApps Holdings Ltd, a leading operator in the dynamic business analytics market. The investment forms part of a £1.8million round of funding from NewMedia SPARK, and private individuals including Geoff Squire, founding Managing Director of Oracle UK and later the Executive Vice President for the Oracle Corporation. Designed exclusively around the new Microsoft.net platform which includes Office 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000, IntelligentApps has developed software that empowers business end users, giving them the ability to design, create and deploy powerful, business specific analytical applications in minutes and without any IT or coding knowledge. The majority of business users worldwide use Microsoft Excel for their Management Reporting. This is testified by the 120 million Microsoft Office users worldwide. Whilst Excel provides part of a solution, it ultimately has limited scalability and functionality. At the other end of the spectrum, extremely powerful OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) databases allow the end user to manipulate complex data relationships, but are expensive and complex to use. IntelligentApps' products totally bridge this divide by creating OLAP multidimensional databases from within the spreadsheet environment, without the necessity for IT involvement or specialized consultancy. IntelligentApps Holdings Ltd also wholly owns Knosys (UK) Ltd, which has exclusive distribution rights in the UK to all Knosys Inc.'s products including ProClarityTM, the industry leading front-end analytical application platform. Knosys UK's customers include Nationwide Building Society, The Body Shop, Kerry Group, RMC Group, Siemens Standard Drives, Buy.com, Avaya Communications, L'Oreal and Royal & Sun Alliance. IntelligentApps Holdings Ltd was founded by Paul Martin and Nico Kichenbrand, who previously worked together at Gentia Inc., a NASDAQ listed pioneer in OLAP technology. Tony Fox, former Director of E-Commerce at Kingfisher plc, is a Non-Executive Director of the company. Commenting on the investment, Michael Whitaker, CEO of NewMedia SPARK said: 'We are delighted to lead this first investment round in IntelligentApps. The Company has a strong management team and is developing a unique set of business support tools that are applicable to all industries and sectors, and that address a very substantial potential market. This investment further adds to our relatively heavy involvement in the core technology/infrastructure/ software areas, which are areas where we continue to see attractive investment returns.' Paul Martin, CEO of IntelligentApps.com and Knosys (UK) Limited said: 'We are pleased to have secured first round funding from such a high calibre early stage investor as NewMedia SPARK. We believe we have the products and associated user benefits that will revolutionize the way businesses conduct their management analysis and have the potential to redefine the $4bn OLAP and Analytical software market. CRM, Product Profitability, Sales Analysis and e-commerce analytics are all areas positively affected by our IntelligentDashboard range of products. With the assistance of the SPARK team, we will develop a robust business which will be well positioned to take advantage of this substantial market opportunity.' For further information, please contact: Michael Whitaker/Fenella Copas NewMedia SPARK 020 7851 7600 Tim Anderson/Isabel Petre Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000 Paul Martin IntelligentApps 07768 876525 NewMedia SPARK NewMedia SPARK Plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market. SPARK is building a portfolio of investments in early-stage companies in Europe and India. Based principally in London and Stockholm, SPARK has one of the largest and most experienced teams in Europe, with skills ranging from investment banking to active involvement in the formation and running of new media companies. The portfolio currently comprising 48 investments, spanning the following sectors - core technology/ infrastructure/software; interactive digital TV; wireless; content; B2B and B2C. SPARK has invested approximately £132m to date. For further information visit www.newmediaspark.com. IntelligentApps Holdings Ltd IntelligentApps.com and Knosys (UK) Ltd are wholly owned subsidiaries of IntelligentApps Holdings Ltd. IntelligentApps.com's mission is to provide analytical applications at the lowest possible cost. Knosys (UK) Ltd holds exclusive rights in the UK to all Knosys Inc products including ProClarity, the industry leading front-end analytical platform. Knosys UK's mission is to provide analytical software to enable business users to visualise their business using trusted office software such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, Excel or Powerpoint. For further information see www.intelligentapps.com
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