GHS.L Regulatory News (GHS)

29 Jan 2007 07:01

NewMedia SPARK PLC29 January 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 29 January 2007 NEWMEDIA SPARK PLC ("SPARK" or the "Company") NewMedia SPARK PLC (AIM: NMS), the venture capital investor today provides aninvestment update following the announcement of the Company's Interim Results inDecember 2006. Highlights • Additional investment of £1.75m into existing investee company,Skinkers, to fund launch of innovative peer to peer technology. • Three new investments completed totalling approximately £1m including amixture of early and later stage investments. • Complinet: - one of the fastest growing b2b publishers in the UK witha focus on governance, risk and compliance issues. • iSporty: - a digital home and social network that includes everythinglocal, national and international around the sports you play and the clubs yousupport. • Gambling Compliance: - a web-based publishing and events companyproviding business critical information on the global regulatory and legislativeissues facing operators and industry participants in the gambling sector. • Other new investments into larger, later stage investments arecurrently under negotiation Skinkers Limited Skinkers is the market leader in push technology. Its solutions provide auniversal messaging platform which encompasses multiple push communicationchannels like email, SMS, PDA's and the desktop to ensure ShouldKnowTMinformation is delivered to customers, partners and employees with visibilityand impact. The company is using the new funds to bring to market the SkinkersLive Delivery Network, a private and secure peer-to-peer infrastructure whichenables both businesses and consumers to receive high quality, digital feeds(text/audio/video) in real time to their desktops. The company signed the first technology spin-out deal from Microsoft ResearchCambridge Labs's last year with Microsoft becoming a shareholder. It has beenrecognised by Red Herring as one the most promising firms driving the future oftechnology and its technology is currently used by some of the world's leadingcompanies. For further information see www.skinkers.com Complinet Limited ("Complinet") Complinet is the market-leading publisher of information and provider ofsoftware solutions to the international financial services industry. Fromregulatory publishing and compliance training through to software development,the company provides extensive compliance services. Complinet currently employsover 200 people in its offices in New York, London and Dubai. Each day, morethan 50,000 regulatory professionals working in more than 1200 companiesworldwide, including 70% of the Fortune 500 Banks, rely on Complinet for qualityanalysis and robust compliance systems. The company has managed to grow aggressively and expand both its product set andgeographical coverage over the last 5 year and has regularly been in theTechTrack 100 which ranks Britains fastest growing private technology companies. The CEO of Complinet, Chris Pilling, is a serial entrepreneur with a backgroundin publishing and the Chairman includes Alan Yarrow (Vice Chairman of DresdnerKleinwort ). For further information see www.complinet.com iSporty iSporty.com is a digital home and social network built around the sports youplay and the clubs you support ('My sports, my friends and I). Described by theGuardian as 'myspace with shorts on', it provides exclusive integrated sportsfeatures with Google, Youtube, Blinkx, flickr, Yahoo and itunes. It features thevery latest news, videos, photos and podcasts from every sport played (365 onthe site). It provides users with their own sporting playground and personalisedsporting history and the best sports search facility in the UK. The team behind iSporty.com includes Chris Ward, who built the media success ofFriends Reunited and Mike Lee OBE, of the successful 2012 Olympic bid, withsupport from England assistant manager Terry Venables. Already described by Yahoo as the 'Find of the year 2006' the funding raisedenables the PR and on-line launch campaign for the new site. Together with wordof mouth activity, isporty is set to be the future of sport online. For further information see www.isporty.com Gambling Compliance Gambling Compliance Ltd is a web-based publishing and events company that aimsto provide business critical information on the global regulatory andlegislative issues facing operators and industry participants in the gamblingsector. There is significant change and uncertainty in the gambling regulatoryenvironment as evidenced by recent arrests and changing regulation in the USA.In the UK and Europe regulation is also changing rapidly and with emergingmarkets (Russia, Romania, China, Macau) introducing regulatory infrastructure,there is critical need for a trusted publisher. Serial publishing entrepreneur David Morgan is the founder and CEO of GamblingCompliance and Richard Kilsby, (Chairman of 888 and Collins Stewart) and MarieStevens (former member of the Gaming Board and ex General Counsel for Ladbrokes)have agreed to join the Board. For further information see www.gamblingcompliance.com - ENDS - ContactNewMedia SPARK plcAndrew Carruthers, Chief Executive Officer 020 7851 7777 Jay Patel, Executive Director 020 7851 7777 Buchanan CommunicationsIsabel Podda 0207 466 5000 About 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. Recent successful exits for SPARK include the sale of Mergermarket to Pearsonfor £120m, the sale of Footfall to Experian for £36m and the sale of Elata toQualcomm for $57m. For further information, see www.newmediaspark.com. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange