SPACE.com Secures $50 Million in Second Round of Funding.

Business Editors & Technology/Entertainment Writers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 28, 2000

SpaceVest, Blue Chip Venture Company, PaineWebber and NBC 

Join Original Investors Venrock Associates and Greylock

in Funding Private Internet Space Content Company

SPACE.com (www.space.com), the definitive space Web site, today announced that it has raised $50 million in its second round of funding.

SpaceVest led the round of venture funding, joined by Blue Chip Venture Company and PaineWebber, as well as first round investors, Venrock Associates and Greylock. These investors join NBC, which announced last week that it had acquired a minority equity stake in SPACE.com.

The investment will be used to fund SPACE.com's continued growth, consumer branding, international expansion and strategic acquisitions.

"SPACE.com welcomes Blue Chip Venture Company, NBC, PaineWebber, and SpaceVest, and we are proud of the continued support of Venrock Associates and Greylock," said Lou Dobbs, SPACE.com Chairman and CEO. "The tremendous support of our investors allows us to strengthen our position as the leading provider of space content and gives us the opportunity to aggressively pursue our growth plans to build our brand and achieve our mission of popularizing space."

"We believe that SPACE.com has the vision, management team and resources to accomplish its mission of building the ultimate multi-media space brand," said Jack Wyant, General Partner, Blue Chip Venture Company. "We are excited to be a part of this unique business venture."

"In a very short period of time, SPACE.com has established itself as the leading provider of space news, information, entertainment and educational content on the Web," said Donald Marron, PaineWebber Chairman and CEO. "No other company is leveraging this space so aggressively."

"SPACE.com has focused in on an area that has been greatly under-served, both on the Internet and in traditional media," said John Higginbotham, Chairman of SpaceVest. "SpaceVest is dedicated to supporting promising growth companies in the space arena. We are proud to be part of the SPACE.com team."

SPACE.com

SPACE.com is the definitive space site on the Web, offering the richest and most compelling content, featuring news, information, education, entertainment, science fiction and games. The company's corporate officers include Lou Dobbs, Chairman and CEO; Sally Ride, President; Mitchell Cannold, EVP & COO; John C. Ferrara, CFO; and Robert Zeller, VP & General Counsel. SPACE.com is headquartered in New York City with news bureaus in Cape Canaveral, Houston, Pasadena and Washington, D.C.

Blue Chip Venture Company

Blue Chip Venture Company has $420 million of capital under management in four separate venture capital funds used for investment in privately-held companies located throughout the U.S. The majority of the capital invested in Blue Chip is from pension funds, trusts, foundations and corporations. Blue Chip was founded in 1990. The Blue Chip portfolio has 85 companies in industries including information technology, healthcare, radio stations, retail and consumer products. The stages of development range from start-up to the acquisition of mature companies.

Greylock

Founded in 1965 and with offices in Palo Alto, Calif. and Boston, Mass., Greylock is one of the nation's largest early stage venture firms with assets under management of more than $1 billion. The firm focuses on early stage investments in communications technology and services, Internet infrastructure and technology, e-commerce, and enterprise software and services. Greylock's strategy is to work in a highly supportive way with entrepreneurs who in turn are committed to building long-term value in companies that aspire to be leaders in their markets. Greylock's early stage investments in recent years have included Red Hat, Phone.com, DoubleClick, Media Metrix, Open Market, IXL, Kiva Software, CheckFree, Cygnus, Forte Software, Legato, ISS Group, Trilogy, Clarus, Xircom, Ascend, Northpoint, and Copper Mountain. Greylock has sponsored more companies to successful IPOs than any other early-stage venture firm, with over 160 total (eleven in 1999 alone) and has been lead or co-lead investor in almost all of these companies. More information is available at www.greylock.com.

NBC

NBC is a global media company with broadly diverse holdings. NBC owns and operates the NBC Television Network as well as 13 owned television stations. In the United States, NBC owns CNBC, operates MSNBC in partnership with Microsoft, and maintains equity interests in Arts & Entertainment, The History Channel, and Rainbow Programming Holdings, a leading media company with a wide array of entertainment and sports cable channels. NBC is the leader among traditional media companies in Internet and new media business. NBC owns 47 percent of NBC Internet Inc. (NBCi), serving as the media company's exclusive Internet portal and broad-based e-commerce service. NBC also holds equity stakes in CNET, Talk City, iVillage, Telescan, 24/7 Media, TiVo, Wink Communications, Gemstar, Intertainer and other new media companies. Also, together with Microsoft and Dow Jones, NBC operates CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video, offering video- and audio-based financial news and information to financial professionals and institutions. Internationally, NBC owns and operates CNBC: A Service of NBC and Dow Jones in partnership with Dow Jones & Company in Europe and Asia. In partnership with National Geographic and Fox/BSkyB, the network owns and operates the National Geographic Channel in Europe and Asia. Members of the media can get more information about NBC and its programming on the NBC Media Village Web site at www.nbcmv.com.

PaineWebber

Paine Webber Group Inc., together with its subsidiaries, serves the investment and capital needs of a worldwide client base. Founded in 1879, its core businesses include private client investment services, asset management, research, investment banking, global equity sales and trading, municipal securities and transaction (correspondent) services. With $423 billion in client assets, the firm employs 19,620 people in 315 offices. More information is available at www.painewebber.com.

SpaceVest

SpaceVest, the space industry's leading venture capital fund, has approximately $200 million of institutional capital under management in two funds. The firm brings a focused investment approach to growth companies applying space-related capabilities and technologies to major market opportunities in telecommunications, Internet infrastructure, and information technologies. More information is available at www.spacevest.com.

Venrock Associates

Venrock Associates (www.venrock.com) was founded as the venture capital firm of the Rockefeller Family and continues a tradition of funding entrepreneurs that now spans over six decades. Laurance S. Rockefeller pioneered early stage venture financing in the 1930s. As one of the oldest venture firms in the United States, Venrock maintains a tradition of collaboration with talented entrepreneurs to establish successful, enduring companies. Venrock activities have focused on early stage companies in information Technology with investments in Intel, Apple, Stratacom, Spyglass, CheckPoint Software, Visual Networks, and DoubleClick as well as in Healthcare with the funding of companies such as Genetics Institute, Athena neurosciences, Vical and Triangle Pharmaceuticals. Since its founding, Venrock has produced a compound rate of return in excess of 35% - placing it among a small number of premier firms that have achieved consistently superior performance.