Apogee Networks Attracts $17 Million in New Round of Financing.

Business/Technology Editors

ROCHELLE PARK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 2000

Oak Investments Joins Re-Investors as Changing Service Provider

Landscape Enlarges IP Billing Market Opportunity

Apogee Networks, Inc. - whose award-winning NetCountant(tm) product line is widely recognized as the most powerful Content and Usage-based Billing solution in the industry - today announced completion of a second round of financing totaling $17 million. The new round of investment was led by Oak Investments, which was joined by re-investors Fidelity Investments, Hambrecht & Quist, along with corporate partners BBVA - Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (a subsidiary of Telefonica), Intel Corporation and two Japanese investors CTC (Itochu Techno-Science Corporation) and NetOne Systems.

Growing opportunities in the Service Provider market sparked the new round of investment; where the ability to implement a variety of value-added services, create competitive differentiation, and capture market share are critical to generating increased revenue. These services include value added content delivery, VPN's, voice- and multimedia-over-IP, enhanced Web hosting and ASP-style offerings. "To make money with these next-generation services, you have to do more than build a good network. Market offerings like off-peak hour discounts, family plans - depend entirely on your ability to track and bill service utilization," declared Pablo Tapia Founder and CEO.

Tapia added that he was particularly gratified by the participation of Oak Investments, whose insight into the e-business market space is widely respected, and the enthusiasm of Apogee Network's re-investors. "Their additional investments is a clear validation of both our vision and our demonstrated ability to execute on that vision," Tapia said.

In addition to its network service provider offering, Apogee Networks has leveraged its development investments by offering an enterprise version of NetCountant as well.

"Investing in Apogee Networks is an excellent play on the rapidly evolving network services marketspace," said Ed Glassmeyer of Oak Ventures. "Apogee Networks is clearly addressing a core application requirement for this high-growth market, and has put together the technology, the executive team, and marketing strategy it needs to achieve leadership in that market."

Industry observers agree that Apogee Networks is well positioned to capitalize on the explosion in the network services market resulting from increasing e-business/e-commerce activity, and that its flagship NetCountant product offers significant architectural advantages over competing offerings. "NetCountant's scalability, flexibility and integration with widely installed service provider infrastructure components such as Cisco routers and Funk RADIUS servers make it a highly attractive solution for network technology managers," observed Jerald Murphy, META Group OR Lawrence Orans of Gartner Group. "If Apogee Networks continues to 'sink its hooks' into these types of installed components, NetCountant will be a permanent resident on any service provider's short list of network business platforms."

The $17 million received by Apogee Networks has been earmarked for development and marketing initiatives, as well as for a number of joint projects with strategic partners.

About NetCountant/SP

NetCountant/SP is the only field ready solution that provides comprehensive, flexible, Content and Usage-Based accounting and billing facilities. NetCountant/SP makes it easy to institute and maintain utilization tariffs and billing policies across even the largest scale SP network environments. Its Java-based interface allows administrative and marketing staffs to test and implement tariff rules and monitor customers accounts. Its browser-based access also makes it easier to deliver customized billing and utilization reports to customers.

About Apogee Networks

Headquartered in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, Apogee Networks, Inc. develops and markets a new class of "Business Aware Solutions". These solutions enable Service Providers to differentiate their services by moving away from profitable flat rate billing models. Enterprise customers have new visibility into the usage patterns and consumption of network resources, enabling them to better manage and leverage their information network investments, and control growth patterns and escalating costs. NetCountant received Best-of-Show at Networld+Interop. For additional information, please visit www.apogeenetworks.com.