Secant Technologies Secures $6M in First Round Financing; Primus Venture Partners Lead Investor as VC Company Looks to Round Out Its e-Business Infrastructure Portfolio.

Business/Technology Editors

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 7, 2000

Secant Technologies, Inc., today announced the successful closing of its first venture round of $6 million, led by Primus Venture Partners, Inc. Recognizing Secant Technologies' strong management team and award-winning product offerings for Internet and enterprise application development, integration and infrastructure, Primus positioned itself as the lead investor in Secant's $6 million first round of fundraising from the investment community. Secant plans to use the new funding to double its size by year-end, hiring in key areas such as sales, marketing, engineering, and customer support.

"Primus is very excited to be part of the Secant team," said Loyal Wilson, managing director of Primus Venture Partners. "When we evaluated the Internet and enterprise infrastructure marketplace and the strengths of Secant's offerings, we quickly became convinced of the value of this opportunity. Secant is producing the kind of high performance technologies that are at the heart of today's major IT infrastructure's needs."

Secant Technologies provides award-winning technology for building, deploying and managing scalable, enterprise grade, e-business solutions that power demanding Internet and corporate business applications. The Secant Extreme(TM) family of products includes Extreme Enterprise Server(TM), a robust platform for building, deploying and managing applications, Extreme Persistent Object Service(TM), object-to-relational integration technology, Extreme Internet Server(TM), a highly-scalable Web application server designed for Java Servlets and JavaServer Pages, and Rose Secant Extreme Link, an advanced language add-in that integrates Rational Rose with the Extreme family of products.

"The application server software platforms market, which grew over 100% from1998 to 1999, presents excellent opportunities for those companies providing robust and reliable products," said Steve Garone, program vice president, Application Development & Deployment at International Data Corporation. "Secant has been an application server vendor longer than many of their competitors. This experience, coupled with the technical quality of their products and a commitment to embrace new technologies, should allow them to be a formidable competitor over the next few years."

Secant's technology is used by Global 2000 corporations, independent software vendors (ISVs), Internet service providers (ISPs), and application service providers (ASPs). Secant's products have received numerous industry awards including Network Computing's Well-Connected Award 2000 for Best Java Application Server, Oracle's 1999 Top 50 List of e-Business Solution Providers, and the 1998 and 1999 Editor's Choice for Best Database Product from Java Developer's Journal.

"As the focus on the new economy continues to escalate, the role of application servers becomes a critical component for reaching the time-to-market and performance objectives of strategic Internet applications. As such, we see the potential for significant market growth and increased demand for Secant's high-performance Internet and enterprise infrastructure," said John Schwalm, CEO of Secant. "We are excited about the course we have charted. With Primus behind us, we now have the backing we need to increase our internal resources, and further strengthen our position in the marketplace."

About Primus Venture Partners

Since 1983, Primus Venture Partners has invested in enterprises with exceptional growth potential. Managing over $500 million in venture capital, the Primus investment team focuses on four industry groups: Internet infrastructure/e-commerce, telecommunications, business/education services, and healthcare. For more information on Primus, visit their web site at: http://www.primusventure.com/ or call: [phone].

About Secant Technologies

Secant Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of high-performance application server technology for building, deploying, hosting and managing the most demanding e-Business applications. With an emphasis on object-oriented and Internet technologies, Secant provides a complete platform for enterprise-caliber technology based on open standards. Organizations that have recognized business benefits from the use of Secant's products include XOL.com, Lockheed-Martin, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, i2 Technologies, Detroit Edison, Triton Container, and Susquehanna Partners. Founded in 1995, Secant Technologies is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. More information is available at http://www.secant.com or by calling (888)-4SECANT.

Secant Extreme and Extreme Enterprise Server are trademarks of Secant Technologies, Inc. All other products are trademarks of their respective rights holders.