itemus Makes Three New Investments in Advanced Networking Companies.

Business Editors, High Tech Writers

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24, 2000

Vengold Inc.,(TSE:VEN.) (OTCBB:VENGF) itemus Inc. (TSE:VEN, OTCBB:VENGF) announced today that it has made early round minority investments totaling nearly US$4 million in three privately held companies specializing in next generation networking technologies -- a key focus within itemus' overall investment strategy.

The three new members of the rapidly growing itemus community of companies are Antarcti.ca Systems Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia; Global Services Network Inc. of Portland, Oregon; and Personification Inc. of Toronto, Ontario.

Antarcti.ca Systems is building a general-purpose mapping and visualization platform for large, complex networks. Antarcti.ca is the culmination of a three-year R&D effort led by Tim Bray, co-founder of Open Text Corporation and co-inventor of Extensible Markup Language (XML).

Global Services Network ("GSN") is a unified messaging company that uses its Polestar service platform to allow customers to simplify and integrate their individual communications services. Using Polestar, wireline, wireless, paging, voice mail and e-mail are integrated into a single communications hub. The GSN management team comprises strong backgrounds in telecommunications and network marketing. The unified messaging market is expected to exceed $2 billion annually within the next two years. GSN's innovative intelligent communication agent system positions the company to be a clear market leader in this space.

Personification uses cutting-edge technology and techniques from diverse disciplines to personalize the delivery of Web content to match the tastes and traits of individual customers. The company is developing a mobile and auditory information, process, and communications service portal. This portal will provide unique and compelling services to the rapidly growing mobile user population. The flagship service will offer personalized audio information provided in a variety of different formats for different devices. The company is led by Marc Chignell an acclaimed University of Toronto professor and Associate Director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute, and John Male a well-known Toronto entrepreneur and investor.

"Each of these companies is creating revolutionary breakthroughs in next-generation networking platforms, part of a broad trend at its inflection point," said Jim Tobin, itemus' chief executive. "We are keen to apply the ever-increasing scale, scope and speed of our operations to help these strong management teams to 'excelerate' their growth."

itemus inc. is a New Economy corporation that creates revolutionary applications and business models for the Internet. Canadian based, but global in scope and scale, itemus participates in all stages of the value creation process: early stage incubation, smart venture investment, converting bricks-and-mortar to dot-com companies and unlocking the hidden value in public technology enterprises. With development, hosting and business service infrastructure in several cities, itemus focuses on opportunities in next generation networking, financial intermediation for commerce, and rich media.

itemus inc. is the proposed name for Vengold Inc. and is subject to approval by shareholders at the Company's annual general meeting on April 26 in Toronto.

This news release may contain certain forward-looking statements that reflect the current views and/or expectations of itemus Inc. with respect to its performance, business and future events. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could affect anticipated results. As such, results could differ significantly.