VirtuOz Names Eric Hahn and Karen Richardson to Board of Directors

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12 /PRNewswire/ — VirtuOz, the leading provider of
intelligent, multilingual virtual support and sales agent solutions, today
announced the appointment of Eric Hahn, founder of Inventures Group, and Karen
Richardson, advisor to Silver Lake Partners, to its Board of Directors. Both
Hahn and Richardson are experienced technology entrepreneurs and bring
extensive operational and leadership expertise to the company. They join MDV
partner David Feinleib and Galileo Partners’ Francois Duliege on the VirtuOz
board.

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“Especially in this difficult financial climate, it is exciting to watch
VirtuOz’s technology dramatically reducing the cost of customer support while
simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction,” commented Eric Hahn.
“VirtuOz developers have made significant contributions to the commercial
application of artificial intelligence and natural language understanding, and
have developed a unique solution to power their virtual support and sales
agents. The agents learn from every interaction, improve their responses over
time, and engage with customers in an interactive dialogue much like a
conversation with a live person. I’m thrilled to work with a team that has
built a vibrant and profitable business with over 25 agents installed
worldwide.”

Eric Hahn is the founding partner of the Inventures Group, a leading
mentor investment firm based in Palo Alto, California. At Inventures, Mr. Hahn
has served as a director and has been actively involved with companies
including Red Hat, Zimbra, Opsware, Proofpoint, and Good Technology.
Previously, Mr. Hahn served as the CTO for Netscape Communications, Inc. Mr.
Hahn was the founder and CEO of Collabra Software, Inc., a leading groupware
provider that was acquired by Netscape in 1995. Mr. Hahn began his career at
Bolt, Beranek and Newman, where he worked on the ARPAnet, the precursor to the
Internet.

“Most companies have implemented some form of CRM (Customer Relationship
Management) solution and consider those technologies core to their business,”
commented Karen Richardson. “Companies now need to invest in solutions that
allow them to interact more effectively and efficiently with their customers
and provide customers with a better overall experience. I’m pleased to be
working with a company that has clear proof points and demonstrable ROI:
VirtuOz intelligent virtual agents have helped customers reduce email volumes
up to 50% and phone volumes up to 20% while delivering resolution rates over
90%. Additionally, the VirtuOz solutions extend beyond support and service to
include agents for marketing and guided selling, which drive incremental
revenue — another way that VirtuOz distinguishes itself from the
competition.”

Karen Richardson brings over 20 years of experience to the VirtuOz board
as a key player in several well-known and highly successful technology
companies. Karen is an adviser to Silver Lake Partners, a $16 billion private
equity investment firm. She is Chairman of the Board for Hi5, one of the
world’s largest and fastest growing social networking sites, and also serves
on the advisory board of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Prior to
VirtuOz, Richardson was CEO of Epiphany, a leading provider of marketing
analytics and web personalization. She also held senior sales positions at
Netscape, during which the company’s sales grew from $80 million to over $500
million annually. Prior to her position at Netscape, Karen was VP of Worldwide
Sales at Collabra Software, Inc.; worked for four years with Lotus Development
Corporation in a variety of sales and marketing roles as well as at cc:Mail,
and 3Com Corporation.

“Karen and Eric are fantastic additions to our board. They both have
outstanding track records in working with market leading technology companies
and helping them to scale,” said VirtuOz CEO and co-founder Alexandre Lebrun.
“Their industry knowledge and experience will give us the kind of strategic
and tactical insight that will help to accelerate our growth and maximize the
opportunity that we have in the $600 billion customer care and online sales
markets.”

The appointment of Hahn and Richardson comes on the heels of the
completion of an $11.4 million Series B round of investment from MDV-Mohr
Davidow Ventures, Galileo Partners and Hahn’s Inventures Group. VirtuOz has
company headquarters in the Bay Area and will use proceeds from the financing
to scale operations, advance the product roadmap and deliver solutions to a
broader set of customers. VirtuOz has installed over 25 virtual agent
solutions in 7 languages worldwide.

About VirtuOz

VirtuOz delivers intelligent, multilingual virtual support and sales agent
solutions to online businesses tasked with dramatically reducing support
costs, while improving customer satisfaction and driving incremental revenue.
Through significant developments in artificial intelligence and natural
language processing, VirtuOz allows ubiquitous, personal and natural
interaction between humans and Internet-based services — VirtuOz support and
sales agents — on a 24/7 basis. Our intelligent virtual agent solution
interacts with customers online via chat and instant messenger interfaces to
deliver support and sales information effectively and efficiently. The longer
VirtuOz agents are in use at a company, the more valuable they become as their
efficacy and success rates increase. Current customers include: online
marketplace leader eBay.fr, travel agency Voyages-sncf.com, telecom service
provider AOL-Neuf, insurance group MMA.fr, and financial services provider
Banque Accord. For more information visit: http://www.virtuoz.com.

SOURCE VirtuOz