Career Rewards, Inc. Announces First Round Venture Funding.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2000

Grotech Capital Group, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, and Steve Walker & Associates Invest $3.3 Million in Career Rewards for National

Expansion, Marketing Efforts

Career Rewards, Inc. (www.careerrewards.com), a virtual networking community that helps companies fill technology jobs by paying $1,500 to $10,000 for successful candidate referrals online, today announced that it has received $3.3 million in first round venture funding from industry leaders Grotech Capital Group, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds, and Steve Walker & Associates.

Career Rewards, who dominates the new category of Internet referral-based recruiting, is using this funding to expand its compensated referral model to a national level.

Career Rewards pioneered a new model for recruiting based on harnessing the power of personal referrals through the Internet, which has been a success for individuals, businesses and community associations in the Mid-Atlantic region. With this round of venture backing by three of the industry's top investors, company officials say that they are prepared to launch Career Rewards' services nationally, allowing everyone to benefit from their personal networks.

"Career Rewards has a truly unique offering, creating a new, faster, and less expensive channel for finding high-quality employees," said Marc Benson, Partner with Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds. "Career Rewards' innovative use of the Internet adds the incentive of personal profit to something business people do everyday -- build and maintain their personal networks. Career Rewards' rapid success helping companies in the Mid-Atlantic region recruit, a strong management team, and the potential for expanding the compensated referral model into other industry segments make them an obvious choice for venture backing. Career Rewards is the epitome of innovation and courage in creating a new paradigm for solving the employer's hiring needs. We are confident that they will be a large-scale success."

"Career Rewards' Internet referral model has proven successes helping Mid-Atlantic businesses recruit -- a constantly growing challenge fueled by intense competition for talented individuals," said Career Rewards' President and CEO Douglas Layman. "We are poised and ready, with backing and guidance from the `Dream Team' of venture capitalists, to take the company to the next level and offer this new category of recruiting on a national scale. We have signed several national contracts, and plan to expand region by region. We are positioning Career Rewards' as the solution that not only helps companies find high-quality employees, but improves the way individuals build and maintain their personal networks to further their career aspirations in the New Economy."

About Grotech Capital Group

Founded in 1984, Grotech Capital Group is the largest private equity firm focusing exclusively on the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States. With over $500 million in Capital under management and offices in Maryland and Northern Virginia, Grotech invests in Internet, Information Technology, Communications, Healthcare, Service Industries, Consumer Products, and Basic Industries. Investments range from early stage growth companies to middle-market buyout opportunities. For more information, please call [phone] or visit www.grotech.com.

About Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds

The Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds is a venture capital investor in early-stage high growth technology oriented businesses. We currently manage approximately $200 million and are investing from our fourth fund. We were founded in 1985 and have been recognized by Red Herring as one of the 25 premier venture capital firms in the country. Mid-Atlantic's current investment interests include: communications and telephony infrastructure, Internet-related technologies and services, wireless technologies or services and health-care information technology. Our primary investment interest is to be the lead investor in early-stage, high growth businesses located in the Mid-Atlantic region. Our investment capital has been provided by approximately one hundred leading institutions and individuals.

Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds has offices in Bethlehem, PA and Reston, VA. For more information visit www.mavf.com.

About Steve Walker & Associates

Steve Walker & Associates (SWA) was established to help emerging companies grow and thrive in today's rapidly changing environment. SWA's Walker Investment Funds invest early-stage money and provides business consulting services to software and Internet-based technology companies with a sound business concept coupled with leading edge technology. To help these companies build a solid foundation for success, to meet and exceed every expectation, is our goal. For more information on Steve Walker & Associates, please visit www.stevewalker.com.

About Career Rewards

Career Rewards is revolutionizing the recruiting industry by using proprietary software on the Internet to pay individuals up to $10,000 for successful candidate referrals. Career Rewards has created a virtual networking community with thousands of active, part-time members. Through our unique compensated referral programs, Career Rewards has discovered a scalable source of high-quality, passive job candidates. In addition, each candidate is carefully screened by experts for both a technical and cultural fit before being presented to hiring officials. Career Rewards harnesses the power of everyone using the Internet, replacing the "brick and mortar" recruiter and creating a better, faster, and less expensive source of candidates for employers. Career Rewards was founded in November of 1999 and launched in February of 2000. The company is headquartered in McLean, Virginia. For more information on referring candidates or listing job openings, please visit www.CareerRewards.com or call [phone].