GHS.L Regulatory News (GHS)

26 Apr 2007 10:00

NewMedia SPARK PLC26 April 2007 For Immediate Release 26 April 2007 NewMedia SPARK plc Invests £2m in Unanimis NewMedia Spark plc ("SPARK") is pleased to announce that it has invested £2million in Unanimis Consulting Limited (Unanimis), an established premiumdigital advertising sales business following the announcement made today by TheUnanimis Group Limited of its demerger into two businesses, Unanimis Consultingand Openads. Founded in 2001, London based Unanimis, is the UK's leading digital advertisingbusiness. Unanimis offers advertisers the opportunity to maximise their return,from internet advertising and web publishers a completely outsourced solution todelivering significant advertising revenue. The Unanimis client list includeseBay, The London Stock Exchange, Gumtree and The AA. Unanimis has been one of the UK fastest growing media and technology companiesand is positioned to exploit the continued strong growth of the UK onlineadvertising market which grew 40% over the last year. In line with its growthplans Unanimis has been reorganised into three new divisions Brand, Relevanceand Response and is recruiting heavily to cope with the expansion in theseareas. Under the terms of the demerger agreement Unanimis has retained a significantstake in Openads - an open source technology for serving ads on websites. It hasbeen developed over the past 8 years and is used by 1,000s of websites globallygiving it the third largest publisher reach in global online advertising afterGoogle Adsense and DoubleClick. Jay Patel, Executive Director at NewMedia SPARK, said:"We are pleased to be backing very experienced entrepreneurs in this fastevolving sector. Since its foundation the business has developed a premiumproduct offering with a blue chip client list. We expect internet advertising tocontinue its strong growth and believe the Unanimis management team is ideallyplaced to capitalise on this growth. We look forward to supporting them intaking the business to the next stage in its development." Khalil Ibrahimi, founder and Managing Director of Unanimis, commented,"This is the first step in developing Unanimis into the leading digital salesbusiness in the UK and beyond. With the support of Spark we will be able to rampup our organic growth whilst we review several strategic acquisitionopportunities in order to drive the business forward at more advanced pace." "We are pleased to retain our interest in Openads which we believe is a veryexciting venture especially in view of the recent news regarding Google'sproposed acquisition of Doubleclick." Enquiries to: Jay Patel/Andrew Carruthers Tel: +44 (0) 207 851 7777NewMedia SPARK PLC Tel: +44 (0) 207 466 5000Isabel PoddaBuchanan CommunicationsKhalil Ibrahimi / Alex RahamanUnanimis Consulting Limited Tel: +44 (0) 207 299 7373 Notes to Editors About New Media SPARK NewMedia SPARK is a quoted venture capital organisation based in central Londonfocused on early stage investments in the technology, media and telecomssectors. SPARK's portfolio has a particular emphasis on digital media, softwareapplications, technology and communications. As an investor, SPARK expects toadd significant value to its investments through active support and strategicdirection. SPARK is listed on London's Alternative Investment Market. For further information, see www.newmediaspark.com. About Unanimis Based in London, Unanimis is the UK's leading digital advertising business.Unanimis offers: •internet advertisers the opportunity to maximise their return from advertising and •web publishers a completely outsourced solution to delivering significant advertising revenue. Unanimis is a privately owned company with three offerings: •Unanimis Brand Since February 2001 Unanimis has offering media buyers direct advertising,strategic partnerships and sponsorship opportunities on its exclusive portfolioof publishers including eBay UK, The London Stock Exchange and The AA. •Unanimis Relevance Launched Jan 2007 Unanimis' open network optimises on its already successfulbrand proposition and exclusive reach in to the UK. Advertisers can now buycontent, demographic and behavioural audience clusters across the Unanimis siteportfolio. •Unanimis Response With some of the strongest on and offline brands in Europe driving coverage forROI campaigns, Unanimis' newly created response team is perfectly placed tomaximise advertising performance. Further information about Unanimis is available at www.unanimis.co.uk. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange