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Powerset Announces Star Team of Angel Investors

Posted on: Monday, 6 November 2006, 09:00 CST

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Powerset, Inc. ("Powerset") disclosed today the identities of several angel investors who backed the company since it first started operation.

Shortly after incorporation Powerset sought the support and financial backing of a carefully selected group of individuals, attracting a unique selection of seasoned investors from a varied set of backgrounds, with ties to the technology community.

Powerset's angel round completed in May 2006, in the form of a bridge loan scheduled to convert in a subsequent Venture Capital "Series A" financing round. The CommerceNet consortium -- founded and led by AI visionary and e- commerce pioneer Dr. J. (Marty) Tenenbaum -- led the round and has been an important ally and advisor to the company ever since.

"We supported Powerset's vision of next generation search from day one," said Dr. Tenenbaum. "We brainstormed with them at the start, we were first in on their angel round, and we've been literally living with them at our offices in Palo Alto. We did all this because we saw that Powerset will revolutionize the net, and these are the kind of people that CommerceNet backs."

The Founders Fund, a San Francisco VC firm led by PayPal founder and former CEO Peter Thiel, also participated in the round as a major investor. "Powerset is poised to out-Google Google," said Mr. Thiel, "Powerset moves beyond clunky key-words to a natural language search that allows you to find what you want just by asking for it."

Luke Nosek, Venture Partner at The Founders Fund, and PayPal co-founder, said "Search industry leaders claim that natural language search is 10 years away. They are not taking into account the Powerset team."

"I invested in Powerset because it is about to do something I have been telling people is around the corner... for two decades," said Esther Dyson, editor at large for CNET, founding chairman of ICANN, and investor/commentator focusing on emerging technologies, adding "Google is not the end of history."

Eric Tilenius, founder of Netcentives and former CEO at Answers.com, also commented on his investment in Powerset, describing the company as "the most intriguing and promising new take on search since the advent of Google's Page Rank."

Pejman Nozad, Founding General partner of Amidzad Ventures (early investor and landlord for Google, PayPal, and Danger), said: "it took us 30 minutes to make a decision and clearly the reason was the Powerset team."

Adrian Weller, a key figure in financial trading at Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers, and Citadel Investment Group, said: "Barney has tremendous enthusiasm, talent, vision and contacts in the field. I believe he has assembled an outstanding team, with a real chance of cracking the NLP problem."

The complete group of angels includes influential entrepreneurs, executives, professional investors, and technologists. Excluding anonymous investors, here is a list (with present or previous affiliations):

-- Azeem Azhar, launch team of BBC Online and Economist.com, CMO of Albert-Inc -- Scott Banister, Founder of IronPort, Director of PayPal, Tagged & Slide -- John Brimacombe, Founder of Ngame, President/COO of Mforma Group (now Hands-On Mobile) -- Esther Dyson, Founder of Release 1.0, Editor at Large for CNET -- Reid Hoffman, Executive Vice President of PayPal, Founder & CEO of LinkedIn -- Zain Khan, early Googler -- Alex Lloyd, Venture Partner at Rustic Canyon Ventures -- Luke Nosek, Founder of PayPal -- Pejman Nozad, Founding General Partner, Amidzad Ventures, Angel Investor in PayPal & Danger -- Carl Page, Founder of Egroups, Founder of Handheld Entertainment, Google Angel Investor -- Sean Parker, Founder of Facebook, Plaxo & Napster -- Todd Parker, Managing Director at Hidden River, LLC -- Rob Rodin, Founder, Chairman & CEO of eConnections, Inc., CEO of Marshall Industries -- Alan Schiffman, Founder & CTO of Terisa Systems -- Aydin Senkut, early Googler -- J. Marty Tenenbaum, Founder & CEO of Enterprise Integration Technologies, Chief Scientist at CommerceOne -- Peter Thiel, Founder & CEO of PayPal -- Eric Tilenius, Founder of Netcentives, CEO of Answers.com -- Adrian Weller, key investment professional at Goldman Sachs, Saloman Brothers, Citadel Investments About Powerset, Inc.

Powerset is a San Francisco company building a transformative consumer search engine based on natural language processing. Powerset is leading the next generation of Internet search. Powerset's unique innovations in search are rooted in breakthrough technologies that take advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language. Using these advanced techniques, Powerset is building a large-scale search engine that breaks the confines of keyword search. By making search more natural and intuitive, Powerset is fundamentally changing how we search the web, and delivering higher quality results. For more information, visit http://www.powerset.com/.

Powerset is a registered trademark of Powerset, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. (c) 2006 All rights reserved.

Powerset, Inc.

CONTACT: Ryan Ferrier of Powerset, Inc., +1-610-247-1132 orryan.ferrier@powerset.com

Web site: http://www.powerset.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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