Brainshark Secures $14 Million to Take a Bite Out of the Web Communications Market.

Business/Technology Editors

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 5, 2000

3i Becomes New Investor; OneLiberty, SI Ventures, Citizens Capital,

and Reach LLC Reinvest in Growing Start-Up 

Brainshark, Inc., the leading provider of self-service rich-media communications solutions, today announced it raised $14 million in a second round of financing. 3i, a leading international venture capital company, has joined repeat investors, including OneLiberty, a leading early-stage Venture Capital firm in the Northeast; SI Ventures, a VC firm which invests in emerging IT and communications infrastructure companies that enable eBusiness; and Citizens Capital, the private equity arm of Citizens Financial Group, and Reach LLC, a creator of leading emerging technology businesses. The new financing will enable Brainshark to continue expanding its rich-media communications platform and to further enhance its self-service web-based solutions.

During the past year, Brainshark has established itself as the leading provider of self-service rich-media communications solutions for a wide range of time-critical communications applications, including new product introductions, sales training, product training, customer care and support, internal and external corporate announcements, intellectual content delivery, customer communications, and investor relations. The company offers a unique business model to its customers, providing them with a web-based communications platform on which they can self-author and instantly deliver knowledge assets, while creating a database of information that can be edited and reused. These corporate knowledge assets are available on-demand via the web, and empower professionals to make more-informed business decisions, respond to customer inquiries with up-to-the-minute information, deliver consistent training to geographically-dispersed sales forces, and effectively communicate in many other business situations. Brainshark's customers include SilverStream Software Inc., Imperial Bank, Progress Software Corp., Productivity Point International, Inc., Experience, Inc., and Advanstar Communications, Inc.

"Brainshark has clearly established itself as a leading provider for web communications and collaborations with their advanced technology and vast understanding of the tools that businesses need to succeed in today's market," said James Walker, Director at 3i. "Companies are realizing the competitive advantage they reap from leveraging the effectiveness of rich-media communications. Using Brainshark's unique offering, any business professional can instantly deliver knowledge to a targeted audience using both voice and visual information. Our investment in Brainshark reflects our belief in both the Brainshark management team, their technology, and the opportunity they have to help corporations integrate global, rich-media communications solutions as a standard business practice."

"We are extremely pleased to have the support and access provided by 3i's international network. And it is particularly gratifying to have the continued enthusiastic support from our current investors," said Joe Gustafson, CEO of Brainshark. "Brainshark has encountered increased demand as awareness and acceptance of the web-based rich-media communications market continues to escalate. This latest financing enables Brainshark to accelerate our delivery of enterprise-level rich-media communication solutions that not only meet current demand, but also anticipate future market requirements based on current business use."

About Brainshark, Inc.

Brainshark, Inc. is the leading provider of self-service rich-media communication solutions that add the power of the spoken word to web-based business communications. Thousands of business professionals use Brainshark's platform and integrated self-service solutions to quickly author and instantly deliver compelling, rich-media content over the Internet, while building a secure on-line database of editable, reusable, and sharable corporate knowledge assets. Brainshark's innovative technology and comprehensive solutions are empowering enterprises, including Progress Software Corporation and SilverStream Software Inc., to address the overwhelming demand for effective and immediate communications. Using Brainshark, customers seize competitive advantage by quickly adopting rich-media solutions as an integral part of their business communications. Brainshark's corporate headquarters are located in Burlington, MA. Visit www.brainshark.com to receive comprehensive information on Brainshark and to try the Brainshark solution free for 15 days.

About 3i

3i has over 50 years' experience of investing in unquoted, growing businesses, and has invested almost $ 18 billion in more than 13,400 businesses worldwide. 3i operates through a rapidly expanding network of over 35 offices in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the USA. This allows 3i US to leverage the group's understanding of a broad number of markets as well as the issues concerning competitive developments globally. Internationally 3i has over 700 investments across the Technology space, to which it seeks to provide added value. Many of 3i's current investments are in the Telecommunications and Business-to-Business E-commerce. 3i's breadth and depth of experience means that we invest in a wide range of different technology companies, for example those in healthcare information technology.

For more information, visit these websites:

        3i:                             www.3ius.com
        OneLiberty Ventures:            www.oneliberty.com/
        SI Ventures:                    www.siventures.com/
        Citizens Capital:               www.citizenscapital.com/
        Reach:                          http://www.reachincubator.com/