VIF Seed Fund Press Releases

15 April 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Philip Lum
iGlobe Treasury
64-9-915-3405
philip@iglobetreasury.com

iGlobe Treasury Fund Invests in Xegen Limited

Auckland, New Zealand 4 May, 2004:

iGlobe Treasury, one of the New Zealand Venture Investment seed Fund Managers for investments in high tech companies has provided bridge funding to Xegen Limited, a developer of intelligent analytic systems used to dynamically extract business intelligence from massive data sources over multiple sites. The funding is convertible under a Series A capital round.

Started in 2002, and immediately profitable, Xegen initially distributed decision support systems. Founder, President and CEO, Ian Carter, then developed a next generation analytic business intelligence platform to meet the needs of businesses that are not currently fulfilled by existing tools. To incubate the concept, Xegen moved its operations to AUT Technology Park in South Auckland during the first half of 2003.

"Xegen plans to lead the way in creating systems to empower organisations and individuals to improve performance by farming intelligence out of knowledge, thereby becoming more innovative and competitive in the process," said Philip Lum, General Partner of iGlobe Treasury. "Xegen envisages a universe where memories can be easily stored and organized, promptly refreshed, continuously created, innovatively deployed, and shared as openly desired. Xegen is distinguishing itself in this area with a clever product vision and scalable market potential, iGlobe's challenge is to value-add by turning Xegen's innovative ideas and cool technology into a viable international business model."

"Xegen expects to position itself at the forefront of next-generation intelligent analytics for structured and unstructured data. Tools of this nature are estimated by the European Intelligence Unit to attract investments in excess of US$148 billion from Chief Information Officers and Chief Executives looking for solutions to the issue of business intelligence. They consider this to be one of the top, contemporary business issues," remarked Ian who is a recipient of several Microsoft awards for the design and deployment of new business intelligence product, and the development of a product concept using Web Services and MS Office XP.

iGlobe Treasury has been working closely with Xegen over the past several months, providing inputs on cost-efficient ways to deploy the company's product development efforts and accelerating time-to-market. With iGlobe Treasury's help, the fledgling Xegen has been able to access resources on a global scale, from people skills, technical competences, collaborative possibilities and market opportunities.

"We have covered a lot of ground over a short time span," said Ian. "Since achieving VC attention, we have had a steep learning curve and immersed ourselves in our market. True to the spirit of VC, iGlobe Treasury is continuing to help us shape our business vision and value propositions, and is mobilising its business network in the Asia-Pacific region for our benefit."

Xegen will use the financial support from iGlobe Treasury, together with R&D grants provided by Technology New Zealand, a Government research and development agency, to accelerate product development, and undertake cross-border sales and marketing initiatives to support the company's planned growth. In the past year Technology New Zealand has invested nearly NZ$300,000 in Xegen's R&D through three grants, including funding the transfer of specialist expertise and technical knowledge over the next six months.

"We've worked closely with Xegen to understand its potential," said Technology New Zealand Manager Suki Siriwardena. "While a lot of the work that is being done with its technology is still lab-based, Xegen is now rolling out aspects of R&D that are business hardened. Xegen is leading edge and very market savvy," Suki added.

Research, Science and Technology Minister Pete Hodgson says he is delighted with the announcement that iGlobe Treasury will provide bridge funding to Xegen Limited.

The Minister says it is confirmation that New Zealand has innovative technology companies that can stand the scrutiny of major investors.

"It is also further proof that there are companies, including new start-ups like Xegen, that can make it globally and compete successfully with some of the best in the world in their field."

Venture Investment Fund CEO Franceska Banga said that iGlobe Treasury's investment in Xegen is encouraging because it demonstrated how venture capital skills and market intelligence can add value at the seed stage of a company's development, to enhance its chance of global success. "This is exactly what was envisaged when VIF was first established," she said.

About iGlobe Treasury

Founded in December 2002, iGlobe Treasury is one of four seed fund managers selected by the New Zealand Government's Venture Investment Fund (VIF) Programme, and the first venture capital fund to be backed by both the governments of Singapore and New Zealand. It is a cross-border fund that provides an innovative platform for promising young New Zealand high-tech companies to grow in the global marketplace by leveraging international management and capital capabilities through a network of offices and associates in Singapore, Santa Clara (US), Frankfurt (Europe), Shanghai (China) and Auckland (New Zealand). The firm actively manages a fund-size of NZ$31.125 million with investment focus in info-comm technology, biotechnology, creative media and environmental technology.

Information on iGlobe Treasury is available on the Internet at www.iglobetreasury.com or by calling +64-9-915-3400.

Information about the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund can be found at www.nzvif.com or by calling +64-9-917-9528.

About Xegen Limited Xegen

Xegen Limited started business trading in February 2002 and embarked on the vision of becoming the leading player in innovative analytics intelligent systems for organizations. This aims to empower individuals with greater foresight and build better performances through better understanding and sharing of massive structured and unstructured data and information. Xegen is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand.

For more information, please visit www.xegen.com or call +64-9-921-9336

About Technology New Zealand

Technology New Zealand is part of the Foundation for Research Science and Technology. It provides a suite of schemes to promote development and adoption of advanced technologies.

Technology New Zealand provides information resources to business, and supports technological development projects in business. These complementary schemes focus on applying and developing technological learning and technical innovation for wealth creation. Investment in the form of grants is directed to support technical risk and technical advancement (not commercial risk). All businesses applying to applying to Technology New Zealand schemes must be registered for GST and must be a registered company or trust. (Tel: 09-912-6733; Mobile +64-29-912-6733, Email: suki@frst.govt.nz) and visit www.technz.co.nz.

ends