Verity to Acquire Strategic Assets from NativeMinds in $3.8 Million Cash Transaction
Company to Bring Self-Service Solutions with Intellectual Capital Management Capabilities to Market Quickly
SUNNYVALE, Calif - 2004-02-18 - In another move to extend its intellectual capital management capabilities across a greater range of business information and processes, Verity Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTY), a leading provider of enterprise software that enables organizations to maximize the return on their intellectual capital investment, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the intellectual property, certain customer agreements and other strategic assets of NativeMinds Inc., a privately held software company and leading provider of integrated self-service solutions. Both companies' boards of directors have approved the definitive purchase agreement.
Under the terms of the all-cash deal, valued at $3.8 million, Verity will acquire NativeMinds' technology portfolio, an integrated set of tools which provides an interactive contact point for customer inquiries. It includes the NeuroServer Engine that manages the interaction between a customer and a vRep, or virtual representative; the vRep Management System (VMS) to track, measure and improve a vRep solution; and a set of reporting and analysis tools to help assess performance, identify content opportunities and gather valuable customer insight. In addition, Verity expects to hire approximately nine employees from NativeMinds' development, professional services and sales organizations.
"Web-based customer assistance offers the potential to raise customer satisfaction while lowering service and support costs," said Anthony J. Bettencourt, Verity's president and CEO. "With this transaction Verity will enable organizations to realize that potential by opening a window into their intellectual capital that can be incorporated into their self-service operations. The NativeMinds technology we are acquiring will be linked with Verity's search capabilities and business process automation technology, included with our recent proposed acquisition of Cardiff Software, for a highly versatile self-service solution that will perform well for customer and company alike."
More than Answers
The integrated self-service solution Verity expects to quickly deploy will provide a customer, employee or any other user a single response to their common questions. Driven by a natural language processing capability, it gives the most appropriate response to the question posed, drawn from a continuously managed index that effectively discerns appropriate responses for each question. If the response calls for a form to be completed by the individual, this Verity self-service solution will have that capability, further automating the process.
"Too many Web-based customer assistance offerings are little more than dressed-up FAQs," Bettencourt said. "The easily achieved linkage of NativeMinds' technology to ours will do more than answer questions. It will give organizations an entirely new way to involve and engage customers, to have them do some of the things typically done for them by support personnel. By rapidly delivering clear, complete responses to inquiries, customers have a better, more satisfying online service experience, while companies rein in associated costs."
NativeMinds' technology has been implemented by some of world's leading organizations, including The Coca-Cola Company, Ford Motor Company, Miller Brewing, National Library of Medicine, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, as well as the United States Defense Logistics Information Service. Several of these are also Verity search and classification customers.
Quickly Accretive
According to Verity, integration is expected to be smooth and swift, and is expected to be accretive within the first full quarter after the close. Responsibility for NativeMinds' customers will transition to Verity as part of the acquisition. The combination of the well-regarded NativeMinds technology with Verity's plus the involvement of its world-class sales and support organizations holds strong upside for customers and for Verity.
About NativeMinds
NativeMinds is the leading provider of integrated self-service solutions called virtual representatives or vReps. NativeMinds' vReps humanize online relationships by providing a single, interactive contact point for all customer questions through a natural language dialog. vReps eliminate the need for separate online support channels by combining search, contact us and FAQ's into a single interface enabling companies to increase customer satisfaction and decrease maintenance and support costs.
The Coca-Cola Company, Dove, Ford Motor Company, Iams, PepsiCo and other Fortune 1000 companies trust NativeMinds' solutions to provide affordable, around-the-clock customer service and a positive customer experience.
NativeMinds is a privately held corporation. Principal investors include Oracle, TA Associates, Convergys, CIBC, Horizon Ventures, Camelot Ventures, and Silicon Valley's Band of Angels. NativeMinds was incorporated in 1999 in San Francisco.
About Verity
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Verity provides software solutions that help organizations maximize the return on their intellectual capital investment by utilizing Verity's industry-leading enterprise search, classification and personalization technologies. Verity software is used for sharing information within and between enterprises; for facilitating e-commerce sales; and for B2B activities on Web-based market exchanges. In addition, Verity technology serves as a core component of many leading e-business applications.
Verity products are used by more than 3,500 organizations in the private and public sectors. Customers include Adobe Systems, AT&T, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Cisco Systems, Documentum, Dow Jones, EDGAR Online, Financial Times, Hewlett-Packard, Home Depot, Lotus, META Group, SAP, Siemens, Stellent, Sybase, Time New Media, and Timex.
Forward-Looking Statements
The statements in this press release regarding the expectations that the integration of the acquisition will be smooth and swift and that the acquisition will be accretive in the first quarter following closing, and the benefits Verity expects it and its customers will obtain from the acquisition of assets from NativeMinds, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The closing of the acquisition may not occur due to the failure of one or both of the parties to satisfy all of the required closing conditions. In addition, the success of the acquisition and benefits Verity and its customers ultimately obtain may differ from Verity's expectations. Such uncertainties and risks include, without limitation: unexpected difficulties in the assimilation of technologies, methodologies and products of NativeMinds' technology into Verity's products; the risk of loss of key personnel Verity expects to hire from NativeMinds; diversion of management attention from other business concerns; and the risk that the integration of the potential benefits of NativeMinds' technology and personnel into Verity will not be successful due to company culture or other issues. As a result, actual results may differ substantially from expectations. For further information on risks affecting Verity, please refer to the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Verity's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 9, 2004. Verity undertakes no obligation to update the information in this press release.
NativeMinds, NeuroServer Engine, vRep and vRep Management System are trademarks or registered trademarks of NativeMinds Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
For more information, contact Verity at info@verity.com or at World Wide Web site http://www.verity.com or call 408-541-1500.
Verity and the Verity logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Verity, Inc.
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