Corvigo Secures $5.5 Million Investment From Sequoia Capital; Corvigo's Proprietary Spam Filtering Technology and Customer Wins Attract Sequoia Capital's First Investment in the Sector.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 2003

Corvigo, the creator of Intent-Based Filtering(TM) for unwanted e-mail, announced today that it has secured $5.5 million in Series A financing from Sequoia Capital. Sequoia Capital Partner Mark Kvamme has joined Corvigo's Board of Directors as a result of this financing, which will be used to expand the Company's sales, marketing and development efforts.

Corvigo provides e-mail filtering solutions based on its proprietary Intent-Based Filtering (IBF) technology. IBF technology uses AI-based technology to determine the intent of information rather than relying on ineffective techniques such as blacklists, whitelists, and signatures rules. The first application of Corvigo's IBF technology is the Company's MailGate(TM), a hardware appliance that sits behind a company's firewall and in front of its e-mail server. MailGate with IBF technology is currently in use at Purdue University, OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), Interwoven (Nasdaq:IWOV), Finisar (Nasdaq:FNSR), and Vitria (Nasdaq:VITR). Corvigo also has a successful concentration of customers in the legal, financial services, and high-tech verticals at leading firms like Riordan McKinzie, Kraft, Kennedy and Lesser, Inc., Keker & Van Nest, LLP and Holland & Hart, LLP. The Company has also commenced licensing discussions with several telecommunications companies for its IBF technology.

"No other anti-spam technology can read and filter e-mail the way a human does when sorting through e-mail. Our patent pending technology addresses this simple concept and is already providing outstanding results to our customers. The Corvigo MailGate can be deployed in 15 minutes on any network and requires minimal IT support, making it an extremely attractive solution for enterprises of all sizes. Our customers report over 90% of junk email is being captured before ever being seen by users, without any legitimate messages being lost," said Jeff Ready, Corvigo CEO.

According to Ferris Research, an independent research organization, losses in productivity from spam represent more than $10 billion per year worldwide. With an entirely different approach to e-mail filtering, Corvigo has been classified in its own category by IDC's Brian Burke. Corvigo has grown its customer base by more than 100% per quarter since launch in January 2002 and has beaten every anti-spam solution it has encountered in real-world customer tests.

"As compared to other security breaches, spam is a large problem choking our systems and e-mail servers, thwarting productivity, and even increasing our business liabilities. It is a large market with customers willing to spend real dollars to fix real problems," said Sequoia Capital's Mr. Kvamme. "We looked at most, if not all, of the anti-spam companies out there, but found Corvigo's technology uniquely capable of addressing and scaling to counter the growing threat spam poses to today's enterprises. They have proven their product works at a number of paying customers, particularly in the professional services vertical. We think the Company can build a big business in the e-mail classification business, and spam is just the first tranche of that business."

About Sequoia Capital

Since 1972, Sequoia Capital has provided startup venture capital for very smart people who want to turn ideas into companies. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs," Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with innovators such as Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Gaurav Garg of Redback Networks, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel of PayPal (eBay), T.J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor, Lou Tomasetta of Vitesse Semiconductor, Steve Jobs of Apple Computer and Larry Ellison of Oracle. The companies organized by Sequoia Capital now account for about 10% of the value of NASDAQ. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.

About Corvigo

Corvigo is the creator of Intent-Based Filtering (IBF) technology for junk e-mail that can be licensed or purchased as an appliance. In the overcrowded junk e-mail solution marketplace, Corvigo offers a patent pending technology solution rather than the "me too" rules-based techniques that have proven to be ineffective, hard to update and expensive to maintain.

IBF technology is not a software or subscription-based service. It is an integrated plug-and-play technology that does not require system updates or routine maintenance to stop spam.

For more information on Corvigo, and its services, please visit www.corvigo.com.