Wingspring - About Us

WINGSPRING, BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INCUBATOR AND ACCELERATOR, STRATEGICALLY ALIGNS ITSELF WITH AN EXCEPTIONAL BOARD OF ADVISORS

Board Members Bring Knowledge and Experience in E-business Strategy, New Venture Development, Law, Sales & Marketing, and Internet/Technology Business Development

PLEASANTON, CA (August 9, 2000) — Wingspring, a business-oriented incubator driven by the goal of dramatically accelerating time to market and significantly increasing market success of the companies it incubates, today announced its Board of Advisors. Wingspring's Board of Advisors will serve as a strategic resource for the company, assisting Wingspring's five founding partners in their ongoing pursuit to build young Internet start-ups into vivacious, successful companies.

"Wingspring views its Advisory Board as a source of thought leadership and a provider of invaluable industry relationships," said Ofir Kedar, Managing Partner and Co-founder of Wingspring. "A key objective at Wingspring was to find advisors who could offer real strategic council to the companies they are advising. We made a conscious effort to choose industry influencers whose experience spans a variety of industries and disciplines and, most importantly, who are dedicated to working closely with us as we guide Wingspring and our portfolio companies through the Internet landscape."

Amir Hartman, Managing Director, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group, brings to Wingspring his experience in e-business strategy. Hartman is a renowned Internet business author, lecturer and consultant, and is also on the faculty at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business where he teaches MBA seminars on e-business strategy. He is the co-author of "The Search for Digital Excellence" a book on e-business. He is also the creator of CommerceNet's Inaugural Seminar and course book on Internet Commerce. Hartman is a frequent speaker at major conferences and consortia, and has made television appearances to discuss business trends on the Internet.

Randy Haykin, Managing Partner of iMinds, a firm he co-founded in 1995, offers his sales and marketing savvy to the Wingspring Advisory Board. IMinds has worked with more than four dozen Internet start-ups since its creation and today has direct investments in 20 Internet companies, including: lead/early investments in Impulse Buy Network (acquired by Inktomi), Wit Capital (IPO in 1999), Goto.com (IPO in 1999), MarketHome (acquired by ClickAction in 1999) and DotBank (acquired by Yahoo in 2000). Prior to iMinds, Haykin held various senior sales and marketing positions in the high technology arena with companies such as Yahoo!, Viacom, Paramount, IBM, NetChannel and Apple Computer. Haykin served as the founding Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Yahoo! and as interim VP Marketing at NetChannel, which was successfully acquired by America Online in 1998. In addition, he was part of the core team that launched America Online's Greenhouse, a successful venture incubator. A published author, Haykin wrote "Demystifying Multimedia" (Random House, 1993). He holds a bachelor's of science degree in computer science from Brown University and an MBA from Harvard's Graduate School of Business.

James J. Hornthal, Chairman & Founder of Preview Travel (merged with Travelocity) and Vice-Chairman of the Board for Travelocity, will share his acumen in new venture development — a natural fit with the Wingspring incubator. Hornthal served as the Chairman of Preview Travel since its inception in 1985 and currently serves as Vice-Chairman of the Board for Travelocity. Horthal also served as President of Preview Travel until April 1994 and as Chief Executive Officer until June 1997. Prior to starting Preview Travel, Mr. Hornthal was a General Partner at Oak Grove Ventures, a venture capital firm, and a Consultant for The Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm. Mr. Hornthal is the Co-Chairman and a director of HealthCentral.com, an online provider of healthcare content and electronic commerce, and is a director of several other private companies.

Peter Jackson, Founder & CEO of Intraware, Inc., imparts business-to-business expertise to the Wingspring Board of Advisors. Prior to Intraware, Jackson served as President and COO of Dataflex Corp. and spearheaded the company's growth from a $100 million regional systems integrator to a $450 million national, full-service network integrator. Prior to Dataflex, Jackson was the Founder, President, and CEO of Granite Computer Products, Inc., a corporate computer hardware reseller and services provider. Jackson also serves as a director for Mslide, Inc. and is the chairman of the Golden Gate Chapter of Young President's Organization. Jackson has a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley and a certificate in Executive Management from Stanford University.

Jeffrey D. Saper, Corporate Partner and Member of the Executive Committee in the firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, the largest law firm in the Silicon Valley specializing in high technology and emerging growth companies, is positioned with Wingspring as expert counsel in securities law and corporate development. Saper formerly served as a Senior Special Counsel in the Division of Market Regulation of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Saper has spoken on a variety of corporate securities issues, including analyst communications and related disclosure obligations of publicly traded issuers. He represents approximately 30 public companies, numerous private companies and several leading investment banks and venture capital funds. He has been involved in more than 100 public offerings and has served as company counsel with respect to prominent initial public offerings including: Apple, Diamond Multimedia, Gymboree, Linear Technology, MetaCreations, Micron and Quantum. He received a bachelor's degree and J.D. degree from New York University.

He is one of the early leaders and innovators in the commercialization and expansion of the Internet. Before founding Noosh, Ben-Shachar was the Founder, Chairman and CTO of NetDynamics, a company that in 1995 introduced the first database development tool for the Internet. Within a few years, Ben-Shachar positioned NetDynamics as an industry leader in application servers, with 1997 revenues of more than $13 million and 600 plus customers, including more than 100 of the Fortune 500. In addition, NetDynamics was also the first to deliver a Java-based application server and was the first company to provide a CORBA-based application server to support large, back-end services like SAP and PeopleSoft. Ben-Shachar also founded and was President of Software Xcellence, a software consulting company whose clients included Sony, DEC and Silicon Graphics. He is a frequent lecturer at technical and Internet Conferences and has been published numerous times. Ben-Shachar received a bachelor's of science (cum laude) in Math and Computer Science from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a master's of science in computer science from Washington State University.

Hal Varian, Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information Management and Systems, is a dynamic academic and business-focused professional who brings to Wingspring his thought leadership in the area of economics and information Technology. Professor Varian is also a Professor in the Haas School of Business, a Professor in the Department of Economics, and holds the Class of 1944 Professorship. He received his S.B. degree from MIT in 1969 and his MA (mathematics) and Ph.D. (economics) from UC Berkeley in 1973. He has taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan and other universities around the world. Professor Varian is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of two major economics textbooks which have been translated into 11 languages, and his recent work has been concerned with the economics of information technology and the information economy. He is the co-author of a best-selling book on business strategy, "Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy," and has written monthly columns for The Industry Standard and The New York Times. In addition to his academic work, Professor Varian is actively involved in private industry consulting.

Wingspring is a Palo Alto-based "springboard" for new business-to-business Internet ventures. Founded in January 2000 by five Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Wingspring combines early stage investment with in-depth experience to accelerate business development and market success. Wingspring's team of Internet and e-commerce professionals offer support in all areas of business development, helping entrepreneurs develop a sustainable business model; create a powerful financial plan; develop scalable technology; create a strategic marketing program; recruit top talent; and, in general, optimize all opportunities facing a start-up business. Wingspring's state-of-the-art Incubator and Technology Center is located in Pleasanton, Calif.

Through its "Gang of Five" founding partners, Wingspring provides a 360-degree perspective — encompassing a wealth of real-world business experience. The five Wingspring founders include Ofir Kedar, Managing Partner and Co-founder, former CEO of SQRIBE (now Brio Technology); Alan Fisher, General Partner and Co-founder, former CTO of Onsale (now Egghead.com); Dianne Snedaker, General Partner and Co-founder, former President of Ketchum Advertising; Timothy Taich, General Partner and Co-founder, Silicon Valley attorney and Principal in Palo Alto Ventures; and Avrami Tzur, General Partner and Co-founder, former CEO of ProSight.