4INFO Mobile Search - draper

March 21, 2005 09:00 AM US Eastern Timezone

Leading Mobile Search Service 4INFO Secures $8.0 Million in
Funding;
Investment Led by U.S. Venture Partners with Participation
from Draper
Fisher Jurvetson

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2005--4INFO
Inc., the
leading mobile search service, announced today that it has
completed an
$8.0 million round of equity funding led by U.S. Venture
Partners with
participation by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Tim Connors,
general partner
of U.S. Venture Partners, has joined 4INFO's board of directors.

4INFO will use the investment to accelerate the company's
growth,
enhance product development and expand sales and marketing
efforts. The
company's mobile search service allows consumers to find
information --
local directory, movie times, sports scores, stock quotes,
weather,
flight information and more -- for free and quickly using
their mobile
phones. The service works with all major wireless carriers,
including
Verizon, Cingular and SprintPCS.

"Having the endorsement of U.S. Venture Partners and Draper
Fisher
Jurvetson is a strong validation of 4INFO's mobile search
business,"
said Pankaj Shah, founder and CEO of 4INFO Inc. "4INFO will
continue to
lead the market by launching new services and providing the
fastest,
most accurate results."

"I tried the service once and immediately couldn't live
without it. It
is simple and compelling. I look forward to helping the team
at 4INFO
continue to build a great business around this fabulous
product," said
Connors, general partner of U.S. Venture Partners.

"The mobile market continues to expand rapidly and the
demand for
information `on the go' is exploding," said Andreas
Stavropoulos,
managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "4INFO has an
impressive
search service that delivers on the promise of fast and
accurate results
to mobile phones everywhere."

4INFO offers something for every mobile user. The nation's
most complete
and comprehensive database of stores and businesses in every
neighborhood is just a text message away. For example, a
user can send
"starbucks palo alto" to 44636 and the service will return
the addresses
and phone numbers for all of the locations in the city.
Other sample
queries include "movies 94303" for local show times or
"weather nyc" for
a free 5-day weather forecast.

4INFO's mobile search utilizes sophisticated and patented
technology to
deliver the most relevant results. The search engine
leverages natural
language processing and features user-specific intelligence.
There are
millions of words in the lexicon and no syntax is required.

About 4INFO Inc.

4INFO Inc. (www.4Info.net <http://www.4info.net>), a leading
mobile
search service, allows users to quickly, easily and
affordably find
relevant information on their mobile devices. 4INFO provides
local
directory and real-time information services, including
sports scores,
weather, flight information, movie times and stock quotes.
4INFO is
headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.

About U.S. Venture Partners

U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) invests in a broad range of
early-stage
information technology companies, including those involved
in wireless,
IT infrastructure, semiconductors, and enterprise and technical
software. Representative USVP public companies are: Sun
Microsystems,
SanDisk, AMCC, Verity, CheckPoint, MMC Networks, 3Dfx,
Leadis, Nuance
Communications, Centillium, Crescendo Communications
(Cisco), Elantec
(Intersil), StrataCom (Cisco), Xylan, Blue Coat Systems and
Concur.

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Draper Fisher Jurvetson is the leader in seed stage and
early stage
venture capital. Since 1985, Draper Fisher Jurvetson has
created a
global network of affiliated venture funds with over $3
billion in
capital commitments and offices in the major technology
centers around
the world. DFJ has proven expertise in identifying and helping
extraordinary entrepreneurs who want to change the world.

Contacts for 4INFO
Dena Cook, 310-566-2283
dena.cook@zenogroup.com <mailto:dena.cook@zenogroup.com>

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Copyright © 2005 4INFO, Inc. All rights reserved. Patents
Pending.

oursourced mapping GIS

The objective of trying to reach you is to explore the
possibilities of a
strategic alliance of mutual value with "Webraska Mobile
Technologies" in
the area of GIS based Navigation Applications & associated
Data Services.

VARGIS LLC (An Infotech Enterprises Company), is a major
GIS services
organization headquartered in Virginia, having significant
experience,
expertise and infrastructure for development of navigation
software
applications and production of associated data.

Our domain expertise, work experience & services in this
segment include:
-- Software Application & Product development support for
o In - Car Navigation, Voice Enabled Routing &
Navigation
o Traffic Telematics, Fleet Management &
Tracking
o PDA / Mobile / Wireless mapping based
Location Services etc.
o Web based Routing & Mapping
-- Development & Platform Migration to Linux / Windows XP /
CE embedded
systems etc.
-- Enhancement, Maintenance & Testing related support for
Navigation
Application & Data Products
-- Development of Map display engines.
-- Road network creation from Satellite / Aerial photography
and secondary
sources.
-- Data services like Capturing of street centerlines,
attribute data etc.

Leveraging our domain expertise and off - shore delivery
mechanism, we have
helped our various customers (including a leading, global In
Car Navigation
product development company) develop and bring commercial
navigation
products & data to market quickly and cost effectively".

With over 2000 professionals, SEI CMMi Level 5 and ISO
9001:2000 quality
certifications, we are committed to delivering quality
consistently every
time. Our global delivery model ensures efficient services
to our clients
worldwide, through fully functional offices in UK, USA,
Benelux, and
Germany.

Mr. Rajesh Nambiar, based at our Denver, Colorado office in
US, will be very
keen to get in touch with you and discuss the potential
benefits that our
association could bring to you. Please let us know the best
time to contact
you. Alternatively, we request you to please provide us the
contact details
of the person responsible and most suitable to carry forward
this activity
in your organization.

I look forward to your reply,

Best Regards,
Shakeel

Shakeel Ahmed
Sr. Executive - Business Development.
VARGIS LLC.

Contact:
Mr. Rajesh Nambiar
Senior Account Manager - GIS Consulting Practice
VARGIS LLC (An Infotech Enterprises Company)
11005 Ralston Road, Suite 202
Arvada, Colorado 80004
Voice : 303.425.7422
Mobile: 909 725 1389
email: rajesh@vargis.com
(Please visit our website to learn more about our capabilities
www.vargis.com)

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JUNE 7, 2005 NEWS ANALYSIS :TECH By Timothy J. Mullaney YellowPages Goes for Gold on AOL The SBC-BellSouth online directory will strike a portal deal that could help it claw back the ground lost to Yahoo! and Google The fight over who will control the $15 billion U.S. commercial directory business as it moves online will intensify tomorrow. BusinessWeek Online has learned that BellSouth (BLS ) and SBC Communications (SBC ) have reached an agreement to supply Yellow Pages listings to AOL (TWX ), including its flagship U.S. online service and AOL.com portal. The deal could nearly double the reach of YellowPages.com, the SBC-BellSouth joint venture that merged their online Yellow Pages units last November. YellowPages.com will integrate SBC's SmartPages.com site and BellSouth's RealPages.com by late 2005. "SMART DEAL." The joint venture is at the heart of the two companies' strategy to meet competition from Yahoo! (YHOO ) and Google (GOOG ), whose new local search engines use zip codes and city names to help consumers zero in on small, local businesses like plumbers, auto mechanics, and restaurants. That market has traditionally been the purview of the print Yellow Pages, which serve more than 2 million small-business advertisers. But the phone companies have got off to a slow start in fighting off the online interlopers. A comScore Networks survey released in April says 66% of Web surfers looking for local information use search engines rather than Internet Yellow Pages sites. Adding AOL, which accounted for 59 million Web Yellow Pages searches in the first quarter of 2005, will help to shrink the gap between the two Bells and their closest rivals. Yahoo accounted for 464 million local searches in the first quarter, according to comScore Networks. Google accounted for nearly 429 million searches. BellSouth says YellowPages.com and affiliated sites were used for about 210 million searches per quarter before the AOL deal. "It's a smart deal, one they had to do," says Greg Sterling, an analyst at local-advertising research firm The Kelsey Group. "They need to market their own sites, but in the short term they also need distribution." EYEING BIG GROWTH. The battle over local Internet advertising pits some of America's most powerful companies against each other over a highly lucrative business. Profit margins at Yellow Pages publishers are often higher than 50%, excluding interest, taxes and noncash charges. There's one hitch: The print Yellow Pages business is growing slowly -- only about 1% to 2% a year, according to researchers at Kelsey. But the combined business of Internet Yellow Pages and local Web search is expected to grow 50% a year, from about $670 million last year to $5.1 billion in 2009. To seize the industry's big growth market, BellSouth and SBC teamed up last year. Their separate Yellow Pages sites had fallen well behind portals and even Verizon's SuperPages site in attracting surfers. INTUITIVE BRAND NAME. Piper Jaffray Internet analyst Safa Rashtchy has argued that Google and Yahoo have a built-in brand advantage in convincing consumers to research products and choose merchants online. She believes that Bells needed to come up with an equally catchy brand image, such as YellowPages.com, to keep their own sites in the forefront of consumers' minds and have a chance to compete. Together, BellSouth and SBC bought the startup YellowPages.com, which had a nationwide sales force, extending the two Bells' reach outside the states where they're the primary local phone carriers. It also provides an intuitive brand name for people who want to find local merchants. The AOL-YellowPages.com deal is not likely to have an immediate, major financial effect on any of the companies. Sources close to the deal said YellowPages.com is paying to have its advertisers appear in color-enhanced, more detailed listings at the top of each set of search results. FIGHTING FOR THE FUTURE. The deal gives the Bells the ability to tell advertisers who use both the print and online Yellow Pages that their ads will reach more people for about the same price. "We're a media company, and our goal is to build the largest audience," YellowPages.com CEO Charles Stubbs said in an interview before news of the AOL deal broke. The joint venture has similar deals with Yahoo and Infospace (INSP ). AOL gets more complete listings of local merchants, giving surfers a reason to choose its Yellow Pages product over Google or Yahoo, as well as ad revenue. In effect, the pact gives AOL a cut of the efforts of the 4,000 sales reps working for the printed Yellow Pages published by BellSouth and SBC. "This agreement extends our strategy of partnering with leading companies to provide our audiences with powerful and comprehensive search and directory services and to open up new opportunities to meet growing demand from advertisers," says Jim Riesenbach, AOL's senior vice-president of search and directional media. The deal's real payoff will come if it helps AOL and the Bells improve their position against the portals. The stakes are control of a local advertising market that Google CEO Eric Schmidt told an investor conference last month should be bigger than other markets the search giant has yet entered. If the Bells and AOL lose that, they will have lost a major part of their future. Mullaney is BusinessWeek's E-Business Editor, based in New York

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