CosmoCom Secures $40 Million in Private Equity Round; Intel Communications Fund, Marconi, and Technology Crossover Ventures Provide Financing for Next Generation IP Contact Center Leader.

Business Editors

MELVILLE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--September 18, 2000

CosmoCom, Inc. a leader in Internet Protocol (IP) contact center technology, announced today that the company has closed a round of $40 million in additional private equity financing. First-time investors include the Intel Communications Fund; Marconi Ventures, the corporate venture fund of Marconi plc (LONDON: MNI); and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), with most of CosmoCom's previous investors completing the round.

This round of funding will help enable the company to position its technology and market leadership in next generation, pure IP Contact Center Platforms through continued rapid growth in its own development, sales, and marketing resources, and through potential acquisitions of related technology and established market presence.

"CosmoCom is turning the PC into a complete multimedia communications tool for e-business, enabling applications such as pure IP-based contact centers," said John Hull, director of the Intel Communications Fund. "Intel made this investment in part to promote the use of PCs as the primary communications device in commercial grade telephony applications. In addition, CosmoCom's solution takes advantage of Intel's Dialogic converged communication hardware and software."

Marconi, a global supplier of advanced communications solutions, was a partner prior to the investment by Marconi Ventures, having closed a Value Added Reseller agreement with CosmoCom earlier this year. "Marconi and CosmoCom share a vision of the rapidly converging worlds of telephony and multimedia services for intelligent broadband networks," commented Joe Pajer, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Marconi's Routing & Switching Products division. "Our financial support is indicative of our excitement at integrating CosmoCom's CosmoCall Universe(TM) multimedia Internet Protocol (IP) contact center with Marconi's Intelligent Packet Networks (IPN) solutions."

TCV has been at the forefront in IP-centric investing, Wwith a portfolio that includes such publicly traded companies as Amdocs (NYSE:DOX), Copper Mountain (NASDAQ:CMTN),IBasis (NASDAQ:IBAS) and eLoyalty (Nasdaq:ELOY), and emerging private companies such as Cosine Communications, Ceon Corporation and XACCT Technologies., TCV has been at the forefront in IP-centric investing. "We are delighted to have been chosen by CosmoCom to lead their current round," said Rick Kimball, a founding General Partner of TCV and new CosmoCom board member. and to have the opportunity to back their "With CEO Ari Sonesh at the helm and their world-class management team, he has assembled," said Rick Kimball, a founding General Partner of TCV and new CosmoCom board member. "The contact center marketplace is desperate for flexible and open next generation solutions. Our research indicates that the CosmoCom's contact center platform is well-ahead of both legacy and newer competitors."

"This cash infusion will help us maintain the technology and market lead we have achieved," explained Ari Sonesh, CosmoCom's President and CEO, regarding the timing of the round. "It also increases our freedom in the timing of our IPO, which we see as a positive value in today's market climate. We will be using these funds to continue executing our ambitious business plan for global leadership in the next generation of Customer Interaction Management systems --

the pure IP-based, unified contact center exemplified by CosmoCall Universe."

"Funding by such a prestigious group of investors speaks extremely well for CosmoCom's future prospects," expressed Ken Landoline, Vice President and Director of Telecom Research for the Robert Frances Group. "We see tremendous potential in what CosmoCom is doing to revolutionize call center technology."

About the Intel Communications Fund

The $200 million Intel Communications Fund was created in 1999 to invest in companies supporting Intel's key programs and initiatives in voice and data communications. The fund, which makes minority equity investments, is initially focused in companies developing solutions based on CT Media, as well as on Intel's Internet Exchange(TM) (IX) architecture, and other Intel voice and data communications initiatives. The fund is managed and controlled by Intel.

About Marconi

Marconi is a major international group focused on high growth communications and selective markets for high technology products. The company has approximately 49,000 employees in over 100 countries and 22 production facilities in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Australia. Their business activities include developing and supplying communications and data networking equipment and solutions to telecommunications operators and Internet service providers (ISPs) in the carrier network market and corporations, government departments and agencies, utilities and educational institutions in the enterprise network market. Marconi Capital, part of the Marconi Systems Division which is headquartered in Washington DC, is a vehicle for the development of innovative high technology start-up and early stage investments to support Marconi's growth objectives for the future.

About Technology Crossover Ventures:

TCV was founded in 1995 to capitalize on the emergence of the Internet and to create a new model for Internet investing by combining the best of venture capital and public market investing. It is one of the largest venture firms in the country focused exclusively on the Internet, having raised over $2.5 billion since 1995. TCV has twelve partners, and headquarters in Palo Alto, California. The company provides multi-stage venture funding -- from $3 million to $75 million per company -- and leverages its venture activity into the public market. Over the past five years, TCV has invested in over 125 portfolio companies. Fifteen of TCV's companies had their initial public offerings in 1999. Four of TCV's companies have gone public thus far in 2000, while another 8 10 companies are in registration. For more information about TCV, visit the website at www.tcv.com

About CosmoCom, Inc.

CosmoCom, Inc. (www.cosmocom.com), the industry leader in unified contact center technology, enhances Customer Relationship Management for both eBusiness and the traditional brick-and-mortar enterprise with CosmoCall Universe, a patented, IP-enabled platform that supports human interaction - both live and message-based - throughout the business transaction cycle. Headquartered in Melville, New York, with offices throughout North America and Europe, CosmoCom has received an array of awards for its next-generation eCare technology and holds a 50% share of the United States IP-ACD market - twice the market share of its nearest competitor - according to a spring, 2000 report by international marketing consultants Frost & Sullivan.