New York and Tel Aviv, Israel and Torino Italy -- -April 18, 2001. VirtualSelf, a premier provider of intelligent information management platforms that run on enterprise and web-enabled devices, today announced a $2 million investment from Telecom Italia Lab, a fully-owned subsidiary of Telecom Italia that invests in private, leading edge technology companies with high growth potential.
"The Telecom Italia Lab investment is a strong endorsement of VirtualSelf's innovative technology and significant market opportunity," says Uri Weinheber, VirtualSelf CEO and Co-founder. "We are extremely pleased to have Telecom Italia Lab as an investor and a valuable technology partner." VirtualSelf will use the investment to help fuel product development and build the marketing and sales infrastructure.
In addition to receiving capital investment, VirtualSelf was selected to work with several divisions of Telecom Italia to further develop and deploy its platform. "VirtualSelf's solution will become one of the key technologies as the Internet evolves," says Andrea Granelli, CEO of Telecom Italia Lab. "Companies will continue to struggle to successfully manage the enormous amounts of unstructured information available to them. Leveraging this information will require applications that can access virtually any source of data and sort out that which is relevant. The VirtualSelf Information Management Platform is well-suited to meet these challenges."
VirtualSelf has developed a unique content understanding, management, and delivery application based on its patent-pending Virtual Understanding Technology (VUT). The uniqueness of the VUT platform lies in its ability to index information on-the-fly and dynamically match personalized user profiles with highly relevant contextual content. The VUT platform provides end-users with personalized information delivery that has been customized to their specific needs which improves user productivity. Thus, the platform is very attractive to companies that desire a fast ROI on technology investments and have a strong need to manage ever-changing unstructured and structured data from corporate databases, company documents, the Internet, and other third-party data sources. The VUT platform is adaptable across multiple platforms, including PCs, wireless, and PDAs.
As a result of its investment, Telecom Italia will receive two board positions. This investment is Telecom Italia Lab's first investment in Israel, an area of particular interest for those operating in the technology sectors.
About VirtualSelf
VirtualSelf is a privately held company that was founded in September 1999. VirtualSelf has developed an information management application that enables intelligent, rapid, and flexible access to unstructured and structured data from any information repository, regardless of document format or language. The platform is well-suited for enterprise and web-enabled devices, including PCs, cellular telephones and handheld devices, due to its precise delivery of relevant information. The Company has research and development facilities in Tel Aviv, Israel and marketing, sales, and corporate headquarters in New York City. In addition to Telecom Italia, VirtualSelf has received seed round investment from teamDCL (www.teamdcl.com). For more information about VirtualSelf, please visit the Company's Web site at www.vself.com.
About Telecom Italia Lab
Telecom Italia Lab is a recently established company within Telecom Italia Group that cultivates innovative business opportunities. The Company seeks these opportunities through research & development, corporate venture capital incubation of new companies. The corporate venture capital and incubation activities address all phases of the development of new companies. By making investments and offering business and technological consulting, Telecom Italia Lab creates industrial synergies with Telecom Italia's internal R&D division and with its operating companies. For more information about Telecom Italia Lab, please visit their Web site at www.telecomitalia.it.