For Immediate Release
Please contact:
Marilyn Keyes
ScienceWise.com
301-975-0103 X 3047
[email protected]
ScienceWise.com Announces $7 Million First-Round Funding Led by PTEKVentures
Gaithersburg, Maryland, April 11, 2000. PTEKVentures, the investment unit of PTEK Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEK, www.ptek.com), today announced that it has led a $7 million investment round in ScienceWise.com, the B2B workplace on the Web for science and engineering. PTEKVentures invested in ScienceWise.com, along with investments from Fuqua Ventures (www.fuquaventures.com) of Atlanta and Pythagoras Participations of Brussels, Belgium, all of which have interests in Webforia (www.webforia.com). Bellevue, Washington-based Webforia previously announced a $2 million strategic investment in ScienceWise.com as part of the first-round funding.
ScienceWise.com is the leader in reaching individual science and engineering professionals in the $247 Billion R&D marketplace and has a registration base of over 100,000. ScienceWise.com provides information on $30 to $35 billion in annual research grant funding opportunities from corporations, foundations and the federal government. ScienceWise.com provides access to published research through its partnership with the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the world's largest information aggregator of published scientific research. In addition, the site brings scientific news, jobs, scholarships, and legislation to its professional audience.
"Sciencewise.com is a great addition to the PTEKVentures network," said Boland T. Jones, PTEK Holdings' Founder, Chairman and CEO and PTEKVentures' Chairman. "ScienceWise has an experienced management team and we believe they will become a major player in building a B2B Web community for the science industry. In addition, we see a lot of synergies with other companies in our network, such as Webforia."
"The ScienceWise.com product offering is a necessity for industry and university R&D professionals," said John Huntz, Managing Director of Fuqua Ventures. "We are excited to be partnering with the ScienceWise team and look forward to assisting in the company's development."
"We welcome ScienceWise.com to our $50 Million portfolio of European IT growth companies," said Stefaan Top, Founding Partner of Belgium-based Pythagoras N.V. "ScienceWise.com serves scientists and engineers around the world. As part of our investment, we are assisting ScienceWise.com in establishing their European office."
"We are delighted to be part of PTEKVentures' Network of Internet companies and the associated support from Fuqua Ventures and Pythagoras," said John Rodman, President and CEO of ScienceWise.com. "This funding round will be used to roll out our branding campaign, complete our management team, and speed up production of key enhancements for ScienceWise.com. The Network includes our application platform partner, Webforia, which recently announced an agreement with CNN to provide targeted content to communities."
ScienceWise.com is launching its new site at the National Press Club Tuesday, April 11, 2000 at 6 p.m. in Washington, DC with presentations by Boland Jones of PTEK, John Huntz of Fuqua Ventures and other key partners. Representatives of the scientific research community in industry, academia and government will comment on "How the Internet is changing science."
About ScienceWise.com
ScienceWise.com (www.ScienceWise.com) is the Workplace on the Web for science and engineering professionals. Over 100,000 professionals use ScienceWise.com services weekly, receiving information tailored to their areas of interest. ScienceWise.com delivers comprehensive information on published research, funding sources, teaming opportunities, products and services. It combines its own services with those from the most trusted industry leaders to provide the information and tools that science professionals need in their daily jobs.
Current ScienceWise.com partners and sponsors in science, research, technology and government include ISI, Adobe; Webforia; KOWI -- German Information Office on European Scientific Affairs; the Scholarship Resource Network; Sigma Xi, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Alzheimer's Association, the American Cancer Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture; the U.S. DOD/OSDBU; the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation; NASA, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and others. ScienceWise.com has been connecting scientists, researchers, and educators to public and private funding opportunities for more than 10 years as Federal Information Exchange (FIE) and then Research and Management Systems, Inc. (RAMS) of Gaithersburg, Maryland.
About PTEK Holdings, Inc.
PTEK Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEK) is a network of leading Internet and business-to-business service providers. The Company's PTEKVentures investment unit has ownership interests in Healtheon/WebMD (NASDAQ: HLTH), S1 Corporation (NASDAQ: SONE), USA.NET, Webforia, Derivion, i2Go and BuyTrek. PTEK's operating units include Xpedite, Voicecom and Premiere Conferencing. PTEK leverages the technologies, management expertise, market channels and capital of its network to drive growth and promote market leadership throughout its operating and network companies.
PTEK Holdings' corporate headquarters is located at 3399 Peachtree Road NE, The Lenox Building, Atlanta, GA 30326. Additional information can be found at www.ptek.com.
About Fuqua Ventures.
Managed by Rex Fuqua, John Huntz, David Guthrie and Scott Tapp, Fuqua Ventures is one of the leading venture capital firms in the Southeast investing in technology based growth companies. The firm focuses primarily on early stage investments where their collective experiences and active participation provide value to growing companies. Prior investments include Convergence.com (Nasdaq: CCBL), Derivion, IXL (Nasdaq: IIXL), Time Domain, VerticalOne (Nasdaq: SONE), Webforia and WebMD (Nasdaq: HLTH).
About Pythagoras Participations.
Fund managers Marc Van Ryompae (formerly with TechGnosis), Stefaan Top (formerly with Trix and Gevaert) and Johan Konings (formerly with Creafund) started Pythagoras Participations to create an exclusive investment platform for a growing number of promising European Internet, software, and IT companies. Today Pythagoras Participations' portfolio includes 19 software companies from Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Ireland, Sweden, and Israel. As experienced entrepreneurs and financiers in the software sector, the three Pythagoras founders and fund managers are focussing their attention exclusively on young and/or start-up European software entrepreneurs and developers.
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Statements made in this press release, other than those concerning historical information, should be considered forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the 'safe harbor' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are made based on management's current expectations or beliefs as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. A variety of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in PTEK's forward-looking statements, including the following factors: PTEK's ability to manage its growth and to respond to rapid technological change and risk of obsolescence of its products, services and technology; market acceptance of new products and services, including Orchestrate(R); development of effective marketing, pricing and distribution; strategies for new products and services, including Orchestrate(R); competitive press
For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements and factors that could cause actual results to differ from the Company's forward-looking statements, please refer to the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, especially in the "Factors Affecting Future Performance" included in the Management's Discussion and Analysis section of the Company's Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1999.
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