Title	Ants.com Closes on $3.6 Mil in Financing
Date:	8/29/2000
Author:	Staff
Source:	LATechNews.com

Ants.com has closed a $3.6 million Series B round of financing, led by Bertelsmann Ventures -- the venture capital firm behind Internet successes eGroups and ExpertCity.

"In the eight months since its launch, Ants.com has done more with less than anyone in the space," said Thomas Gieselmann, partner at Bertelsmann Ventures, the independent venture capital firm backed by Bertelsmann A.G., the world's third largest media company. "While many Internet start-ups were fueling growth through extravagant marketing programs, Ants.com has quietly been improving and expanding by word of mouth."

In addition to Bertelsmann Ventures, this round of financing was joined by Millenium Hanson, the Santa Barbara Technology Incubator, and CommerceNet.

"Bertelsmann's continued support is gratifying, and the new investors have really helped with the heavy lifting," said Rick Davis, Ants.com's president and chief executive officer. "They believe in our mission of giving businesses a place to find skilled, qualified project help in today's tight global eCollar labor market."

Ants.com's plans for this round include product development, ongoing operations, and strategic marketing initiatives.

Progress To-Date

Since its initial round closed in February of this year, Ants.com has grown to 55,000 service providers and 23,000 service-buying businesses. Membership is growing at a rate of four percent a week or 20 percent per month. The company is one of the only companies that has successfully implemented a viral marketing program in the B2B space.

About Bertelsmann Ventures

Bertelsmann Ventures (BV) is the independent Venture Capital Fund of the world's third largest media company, Bertelsmann A.G. BV has offices in New York, Santa Barbara, California and Hamburg, Germany.

BV is fully Internet-centric, focusing on C2C, B2C and B2B services, technologies and the wireless applications space. BV primarily invests in early stage companies with strong management teams.

About Ants.com Inc.

With more than 55,000 service providers and 23,000 service-buyers in more than 30 categories of project work, Ants.com is the fastest growing virally driven marketplace for eCollar project work -- expanding at a rate of about 20 percent per month. Ants.com is dedicated to creating the most efficient liquid marketplace for the trillion-dollar worldwide freelance services market. Companies looking to outsource projects -- from programming to marketing to design -- can quickly meet their needs at Ants.com by tapping a pool of qualified professional service providers and independent workers in the world. Ants.com is a privately held company with headquarters in Santa Barbara, Calif.

For more information, visit http://www.ants.com.