BulkMarkets.com Wins e.Millennium Awards at COMDEX/Spring 2000; B2B Company's WorldWineTrade.com Named Outstanding e-Business Application.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

COMDEX Spring 2000

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 20, 2000

BulkMarkets.com was recognized yesterday at COMDEX/Spring 2000 as a leader in e-business applications.

The B2B startup based in Chicago won two e.Millennium awards for its WorldWineTrade.com web site: 1) Best e-Business-to-Business Application for an organization of less than 4000 employees, and 2) Best New Technology.

"It is an honor to be named by technology experts as a company that will help set the standards for excellence in e-commerce," said Mike MacDougal, CEO of BulkMarkets.com. "These awards reinforce our belief that BulkMarkets' e-commerce platform will improve how bulk agricultural commodities are bought and sold globally."

The first COMDEX award to honor e-business solutions, the e.Millennium Award was developed by the Chicago Research & Planning Group (CRPG), an association of chief information officers (CIOs) from Fortune 1000 companies representing more than $60 billion in annual technology spending power, and debuted at COMDEX/Spring 2000. It was designed to honor leaders of the new economy for outstanding e-business solutions. The competition was judged by more than 60 CIOs and CEOs from large corporations and was based 70 percent on business value and 30 percent on technology innovation/execution.

"e-Business is the most profound influence on corporate America in the new Millennium," said Richard Arns, Executive Director of CRPG. "e.Millennium Award winners like BulkMarkets.com are shaping new business models for the Internet century."

BulkMarkets.com is implementing a real-time B2B web strategy to become the primary international market maker for agricultural products sold in bulk. Industry-specific Web sites will enable producers and packagers to electronically buy and sell bulk agricultural commodities and reduce the amount of time and money spent on traditional middlemen. The company won the e.Millennium awards for the proprietary software debuting on its first vertical market Web site -- WorldWineTrade.com -- which will launch to the trade on May 16th. Other targeted bulk commodities include juice concentrates, nuts, dried fruits, and spices/herbs. The company recently completed its first round of institutional funding led by Bay City Capital's North American Nutrition and Agribusiness Fund with other investors including William Blair New World Ventures and William Blair & Company.

"BulkMarkets quickly and easily provides users with market information on a local or global scale and then facilitates the fulfillment of transactions," said Jeff Walker, President. "We consider these awards a strong endorsement of our business strategy and proprietary technology that we have developed with Calypso Systems over the past 18 months."