PacketVideo Closes $21 Million Financing with Key Strategic Partners

In a move that will allow it to follow through with its plans to offer media content to handheld devices, San Diego, CA-based PacketVideo Corp. has closed a $21 million round of financing, bringing the total equity capital raised to more than $25 million. Siemens Mustang Ventures, a participant in a previous financing, led this round. PacketVideo's investors now include:

• Credit Suisse First Boston—a global investment banking firm with 1998 revenues of $6.7 billion, equity of $7.1 billion, and assets of $291 billion

• Intel Corp.—chip maker and a manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products

• Nexus Group LLC—a private multi-stage investment firm based in San Francisco. Investments include Commerce One, Asia Online, Phone.com, Service Metrics (acquired by Exodus Communications), Object Switch, enCommerce, net.genesis, and Vstream

• QUALCOMM Inc.—pioneer of CDMA digital wireless technology and developer and supplier of CDMA chipsets and system software solutions

• Reuters Group PLC—news and information provider, through its Greenhouse investment program

• Members of the Rockefeller family

• Siemens Mustang Ventures—the venture capital group of Siemens Information and Communications Networks, a global player in information and communications technologies

• Sony Corp. of America—the subsidiary of Sony Corp. in Tokyo that is responsible for overseeing the company's overall strategic initiatives and diverse electronics and entertainment operations in the United States

The funds from this round will further the company's rapid growth, providing working capital, funding research and development, and supporting additional resources for engineering, sales, and marketing.

PacketVideo provides software-based encoding and decoding products that enable content providers and cellular carriers to deliver rich media content, not just data, to mobile users anytime, anywhere.

"PacketVideo has all the ingredients required to be a category-defining company," said Frank Quattrone, managing director and head of Credit Suisse First Boston Technology Group. "I felt this way when I first saw Cisco, Amazon.com, MP3.com, and Phone.com. PacketVideo has world-class technology, strong partners and a great management team. This, combined with the company's first-to-market advantage, will create tremendous excitement next year."

In June 1999, PacketVideo publicly demonstrated the transmission of good-quality live and pre-encoded streaming video to palm-size and handheld PCs over today's 14.4 kbps digital wireless networks. PacketVideo will launch field trials of its technology during the first quarter of 2000.

Edited by Ellen Jensen