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Press Release

Xtract, Innovator in Social Advertising Intelligence Raises EUR 7.5 Million

London, UK and Helsinki, Finland – July 8, 2008: Xtract, the leader and innovator in social advertising intelligence today announced that it has closed its series B round of funding with EUR 7,5 Million ($11.74M) from leading early-stage technology investors Creandum, ETF III advised by Eqvitec Partners and InnovationsKapital.

Xtract enables mobile and online companies to refine their customer data creating highly accurate 3 Dimensional profiles combining social interactions, behaviour and demographic information. It answers a crucial need in the advertising industry by making the advertising in social media and mobile effective. By using Xtract, customers have seen the average ad income increase with as much as 82% and in mobile campaigns response rates have increased, on an average, with 30%.

Staffan Ingeborn, Managing Investment Director of InnovationsKapital comments: “Xtract is a very exciting company with a unique proposition for targeting of digital advertising. Its solutions have been shown to create substantial value for its customers, and we believe that Xtract is very well positioned to become a winner and a leader in this space.”

Xtract works with over 50 companies with intensive customer data ranging from global leaders such as Nokia, T-Mobile and Vodafone to innovative challengers such as BLYK and Flirtomatic. Xtract makes complexity simple and actionable via a unique and patented set of products that based upon social interactions, behaviour data and other dataflow can create accurate and dynamic real-time customer profiles. Xtract can ensure delivery of the right audience to the right commercial message at the right time and accurately report on the effectiveness of any campaign. Something which up until now was not possible.

Xtract board member Juha Mikkola of Eqvitec Partners said: “This investment opportunity had a lot of demand and clearly marks the very interesting market and expansion opportunity that Xtract represents in the fast growing social intelligence market.”

“We are delighted to have added two new prominent investors, InnovationsKapital and Creandum in addition to our original investor ETF III advised by Eqvitec Partners. This investment round combined with an exceptional organic growth enables us to expand to new markets outside Europe,” says Kimmo Kiviluoto, CEO of Xtract.

About Creandum
Creandum is a Nordic venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology companies. The firm has 120 million Euros under management and is today the fastest growing independent partnership of its kind in the Nordic region. Creandum invests in innovative companies in high growth markets led by outstanding entrepreneurs. All investment professionals at Creandum have started companies or been part of successful startups. For more information, please visit www.creandum.com.

About Eqvitec Partners Oy
Eqvitec Partners Oy is one of the largest technology focused venture capital and private equity firms in Northern Europe. The company was founded in 1997 and employs 15 investments professionals in Helsinki and Stockholm. Eqvitec Partners currently advises 6 funds with the total capital base of 500 million Euros. The funds invest in technology companies in all phases from start-up to buyouts. At the moment the funds have investments in 40 companies and have carried out 35 exits. More information can be found at www.eqvitec.com.

About InnovationsKapital
InnovationsKapital is a leading independent venture capital firm in the Nordic region with capital commitments of EUR 317 million in four funds. Years of experience and a strong network within academia and industry enable InnovationsKapital to invest in successful early stage and growth companies. InnovationsKapital supports talented entrepreneurs to help them create successful high growth businesses. Since 1994, InnovationsKapital has made over 60 investments and a number of successful exits in the life sciences and technology sectors. For more information, please visit www.innkap.se.

About Xtract
Xtract is the global trusted partner and innovator in Social Advertising Intelligence.
We have the technology and competence to turn large user data into cash flow. Our solutions create accurate and automated consumer profiles for mobile and online advertisers based on social interactions, behavioural and demographic data.
Xtract operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 companies with intensive customer data ranging from global leaders such as Nokia, T-Mobile and Vodafone to innovative challengers such as BLYK and Fonecta. Headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland and London, UK. www.xtract.com

Date
July 8th, 2008

Press Release

Xtract and Greenplum See Significant Adoption of Unique Social Advertising Intelligence Solution in Europe and Asia

Joint Solution Enables Companies to Gain Deep Customer Insight and Better Target Their Advertising

Helsinki, Finland and San Mateo, Calif. – 25 June 2008 – Xtract, the leader in social advertising intelligence, and Greenplum, a leading provider of database software for business intelligence, today announced strong customer adoption of the Xtract Social Advertising Intelligence (SAI) solution which includes software from Xtract running on the Greenplum Data Warehouse. Top customers in Europe and Asia are deploying Xtract SAI to better target their marketing and advertising to strengthen and grow customer communities in the telecommunications, advertising and retail markets.

Xtract SAI is a powerful solution for advertisers and marketers to target and manage personalized and automated advertising campaigns. With highly accurate, three-dimensional profiling based on customers’ social, behavioral and demographic information, Xtract SAI revolutionizes customers’ marketing and multiplies the results from their advertising campaigns. Xtract SAI is powered by the Greenplum Database and is sold as a turnkey solution to Xtract and Greenplum’s shared customers. These customers are using Xtract SAI to improve business across a range of market segments including telecommunications, advertising and retail.

Fonecta Group is the market-leading directory services company in Finland, offering a variety of directory services to meet the contact information needs of customers. Fonecta’s services are used more than 1.5 million times each day. Fonecta has deployed Xtract SAI in its datacenter for extremely fast analytics across a massive dataset of contacts.

“Our SMS services have been increasing rapidly, and we were looking for a better way to understand our customer segments to target our SMS marketing,” says Rami Meling, Business Development Manager, Fonecta. “Working with Xtract, we were able to create a clear segmenting of our customers and also begin to target and personalize our SMS marketing online. We are thrilled about the results.”

Broadcasting company Plus TV has over 250,000 subscribers and customers utilizing its pay-per-view television service. Plus TV is using Xtract and Greenplum to perform demographic data analysis for its marketing and customer retention efforts.

“Analytics are extremely important to us. We needed a partner with the top people building the right solution,” said Jari Vanhanen, CTO of Plus TV. “Xtract delivers a reliable solution and Greenplum Database has worked extremely well. Together these products are helping us to improve our profitability.”

“Xtract enables companies to gain competitive advantage from their data, and the combined Xtract and Greenplum solution allows customers to achieve critical insights with greater speed and scale,” said Frank Bien, VP of Business Development at Greenplum. “The market traction we’re seeing for Xtract SAI underscores the significant value companies derive from our joint solution.”

About Xtract
Xtract is the global trusted partner and innovator in Social Advertising Intelligence. We have the technology and competence to turn large user data into cash flow. Our solutions create accurate and automated consumer profiles for mobile and online advertisers based on social interactions, behavioural and demographic data. Xtract operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 companies with intensive customer data ranging from global leaders such as Nokia, T-Mobile and Vodafone to innovative challengers such as BLYK and Fonecta. Headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland and London, UK.

About Greenplum
Greenplum is a data warehouse software company that has developed the world’s fastest, most scalable database software for business intelligence. Designed to handle extremely large and fast-growing data volumes, Greenplum Database enables companies to gain critical insights into their data and extend their competitive advantage in the market at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. Greenplum Database powers the Sun Data Warehouse Appliance and is being used by some of the leading companies in the world, including Reliance Communications, Comcast, Skype, AirTran and O’Reilly Media.

Date
June 30th, 2008

Press Release

Xtract secures EUR 3.5 Million to support fast growth

London, UK and Helsinki, Finland: Xtract, the leader in social advertising intelligence today announced it has closed new funding of EUR 3,5 Million led by Creandum, a leading early stage technology investor together with renewed commitment from existing investor ETF III, advised by Eqvitec Partners.

Xtract answers a real need in the advertising industry which is making the advertising in social media and mobile effective. By using Xtract, customers have seen the average ad income increase with as much as 82% and in mobile campaigns response rates have increased with 30%.

“Our solutions provide genuinely innovative ways to ensure delivery of the right audience to the right commercial message at the right time and to accurately report on the effectiveness of any campaign in an automated way, something that up until now was not possible,” said Kimmo Kiviluoto, CEO of Xtract. ”We are delighted to have Creandum join the company which clearly underlines the confidence in our offering and in the management team,” he added.

Staffan Helgesson, Managing General Partner at Creandum, said: “We are very impressed with Xtract’s success in the telecom sector where leading mobile operators use Xtract to increase revenues and reduce churn. We also believe that Xtract’s approach is unique from the traditional approach in mass advertising. The transition from the traditional static advertising to the more dynamic advertising is going to happen and the brand managers and advertising agencies understanding this change will be the ones surviving the transition to digital advertising. Xtract has a unique position to be one of the leaders driving this change.”

Xtract board member Juha Mikkola of Eqvitec Partners said he was pleased by Creandum’s decision to invest. “This investment opportunity had a lot of demand and clearly marks the very interesting market and expansion opportunity that Xtract represents in the fast growing social intelligence market”

About Xtract
Xtract is the global trusted partner and innovator in Social Advertising Intelligence.
We have the technology and competence to turn large user data into cash flow. Our solutions create accurate and automated consumer profiles for mobile and online advertisers based on social interactions, behavioural and demographic data.

Xtract operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 companies with intensive customer data ranging from global leaders such as Nokia, T-Mobile and Vodafone to innovative challengers such as BLYK and Fonecta. Headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland and London, UK. www.xtract.com

About Creandum
Creandum is a Nordic venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology companies. The firm has 120 million Euros under management and is today the fastest growing independent partnership of its kind in the Nordic region. Creandum invests in innovative companies in high growth markets led by outstanding entrepreneurs. All investment professionals at Creandum has started companies or been part of successful startups. For more information, please visit www.creandum.com.

About Eqvitec Partners Oy
Eqvitec Partners Oy is one of the largest technology focused venture capital and private equity firms in Northern Europe. The company was founded in 1997 and employs 15 investments professionals in Helsinki and Stockholm. Eqvitec Partners currently advises five funds with a total capital base of 440 million euros. The funds invest in technology companies in all phases from start-up to buyouts. At the moment the funds have investments in 40 companies and have carried out 35 exits. More information can be found at www.eqvitec.com.

Date
May 28th, 2008

Press Release

Xtract Wins European IT Excellence Award

IT Europa Excellence Awards Winner logo

London, UK and Helsinki, Finland - Xtract is the winner of the European IT Excellence Award for Business Intelligence. This award recognises business solutions rewarding excellence in the development and the delivery of real end-user solutions.

The entry by Xtract for its client BLYK showed not only a real understanding of what the client was trying to achieve but also a level of skill and excellence in solution delivery that the judges felt was a winning formulae in the Business Intelligence category, commented John Chapman, awards organiser and Editorial Director of IT Europa.

Xtract’s Social Links is the world’s first commercially available software for analysing social network interactions within large scale mobile communication networks. Social Links ability to deliver a far higher return on investments for its clients has been proven in a series of trials and full-scale projects with mobile operators around the globe.

In 2007 the implications of digital media, marketing and communications took global centre stage, with the understanding that targeted digital marketing and advertising communications can be significantly more effective, thereby delivering better marketing ROI. Nowhere was this more evident than in mobile advertising and marketing.

All mobile communications with the right tools can aggregate into delivering deep insight into customers, needs and preferences, which can then be monetised. Such insight is called Social Intelligence.

About Xtract Social Links

Xtract Social Links transforms the latest scientific findings in the area of social network analysis into automated tools for real-time customer profiling and targeting of marketing activities - such as targeted advertising, churn retention and upselling. It contains tools for combining the network information with predictive modelling, relevant for specific business applications including reporting and visualization tools - making it a complete product for the mobile operator’s use.

Xtract Social Links identifies the underlying network structures within the subscriber base, divides it into communities and classifies subscribers based on their social influence. The result is a completely new method of customer insight and marketing capability. With new, self-learning customer profiles through multi-dimensional analytics of real operator customer mobile operators can enjoy major business benefits. These range from the reduction of churn through efficient campaigns, to rapid increase of revenues from intelligent new customer acquisition and product launch campaigns.

About Xtract

Xtract is the global trusted partner and innovator in Social Marketing and Advertising Intelligence. It enables digital media and mobile industries to monetise their digital communities and social networks. Xtract is capable of taking large and multiple raw data flows and turn those data flows into unique Social Marketing and Social Advertising Intelligence. Through the marriage of deep science, advanced mathematics and leading edge knowledge into social networks, Xtract is able to use that unique intelligence via a patented set of tools and process to enable its clients for example to:

  1. Deliver highly targeted advertising across the 3 screens
  2. Increase the (value) cost of ads delivered to the mobile platform
  3. Reduce Churn
  4. Increase customer loyalty
  5. Launch new products and services into the marketplace at greater speed and lower cost
  6. Enable highly effective virality
  7. Effectively monetise digital communities
  8. Significantly reduce marketing costs
    Xtract operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 blue-chip companies with intensive customer data.

Headquarters are in London, UK and the R&D centre of excellence in Helsinki, Finland.

http://www.xtract.com

Date
February 8th, 2008

Press Release

Social Links 2.5 - Automated, Socially Intelligent Software to Revolutionise Operators’ Marketing

London, UK and Helsinki, Finland - In 2007 the implications of digital media, marketing and communications took global centre stage, with the understanding that targeted digital marketing and advertising communications can be significantly more effective, thereby delivering better marketing ROI. Nowhere was this more evident than in mobile advertising and marketing.

All mobile communications with the right tools can aggregate into delivering deep insight into customers’, needs and preferences, which can then be monetised. Such insight is called Social Intelligence.

Xtract’s Social Links Product, is the world’s first commercially available software for analysing social network interactions within large scale mobile communication networks. Social Links ability to deliver a far higher ROI for its clients has been proven in a series of trials and full-scale projects with mobile operators around the globe. And Xtract’s Social Links Product has recently been upgraded to deliver more valuable and efficient marketing ROI.

What does Xtract Social Links do? It transforms the latest scientific findings in the area of social network analysis into automated tools for real-time customer profiling and targeting of marketing activities - such as targeted advertising, churn retention and upselling. It contains tools for combining the network information with predictive modelling, relevant for specific business applications including reporting and visualization tools ? making it a complete product for the mobile operator’s use.

“With the appropriate combination of customers’ profile, lifestyle, social linkages and behaviour, it is possible to leverage word-of-mouth and social influence in marketing,” says Kimmo Kiviluoto, CEO of Xtract. “This new form of marketing is able to be more relevant, timely and contextual and therefore proven to be better accepted by the consumer. With Xtract’s Social Links, it is possible to pro-actively offer benefits, services and products to the end users that fit their needs today but also be able to identify when their segment or profile need changes. This, most certainly enables an end user centric approach to providing what’s needed instead of what’s on offer approach”.

Xtract Social Links identifies the underlying network structures within the subscriber base, divides it into communities and classifies subscribers based on their social influence. The result is a completely new method of customer insight and marketing capability. With new, self-learning customer profiles through multi-dimensional analytics of real operator customer mobile operators can enjoy major business benefits. These range from the reduction of churn through efficient campaigns, to rapid increase of revenues from intelligent new customer acquisition and product launch campaigns.

Designed to Scale up

The Xtract Social Links is a software product based on standard Java technologies and components. The new, just released version, Xtract Social links 2.5, incorporates storage for the data for analysis shipping with an off the shelf Greenplum data warehouse solution, using standard PostgreSQL, which means that connections to any SQL compliant databases are straightforward.

The new Xtract Social Links 2.5 is now able to visualise the social network within a client customer base, visualise project campaign data on that network and drill down on specific communities.
Delivering unique intelligence, which can then be monetised.

Reporting is also greatly enhanced and in addition to standard templates, ad hoc reporting capabilities are now available.

The solution is fully scalable using commodity hardware and thus able to accommodate any amount of data processing requirements. The Xtract Social Links Product thus provides a proven and robust platform for further development of Xtract Social Advertising Intelligence solutions.

About Xtract

Xtract is the global trusted partner and innovator in Social Marketing and Advertising Intelligence. It enables digital media and mobile industries to monetise their digital communities and social networks. Xtract is capable of taking large and multiple raw data flows and turn those data flows into unique Social Marketing and Social Advertising Intelligence. Through the marriage of deep science, advanced mathematics and leading edge knowledge into social networks, Xtract is able to use that unique intelligence via a patented set of tools and process to enable its clients for example to:

1. Deliver highly targeted advertising across the 3 screens
2. Increase the (value) cost of ads delivered to the mobile platform
3. Reduce Churn
4. Increase customer loyalty
5. Launch new products and services into the marketplace at greater speed and lower cost
6. Enable highly effective virality
7. Effectively monetise digital communities
8. Significantly reduce marketing costs

Xtract operates across Europe and Asia, working with over 50 blue-chip companies with intensive customer data. Headquarters are in London, UK and the R&D centre of excellence in Helsinki, Finland.

Date
February 8th, 2008