NET STARTUP LANDS $19.6 MILLION TO HELP AUCTION SELLERS DRIVE MORE PRODUCT SALES FASTER AND EASIER THAN EVER BEFORE

Andale Charter Sellers Gear Up to Leverage the Industry's First Web-based Auction Business Management Service

SANTA CLARA, CALIF. – Oct. 5, 1999 – Andale™, Inc. today announced that it has raised $19.6 million of venture capital from Accel Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Oak Hill Venture Partners and angel investors. Founded in April 1999, Andale offers a Web-based Auction Business Management service that makes it possible to sell twice as much merchandise, on multiple markets such as eBay™, Amazon™, BizBuyer.com™, Respond.com™ and others, with half the amount of time and effort. The company also announced today that 50 initial Charter Sellers have actively started using the early release of Andale (commercial availability planned for November 1999) to automate their high-volume selling activities and manage their businesses.

"Most people don't realize that the vast majority of transactions on sites like eBay are done by just a small percentage of registered users, many of whom auction 200 items or more per week. For these serious sellers, online auctions are their primary business storefront," said Munjal Shah, a co-founder and CEO of Andale. "Yet, auction sites are designed for the casual user. It takes too much time and effort to execute and manage the sales process."

Shah continued, "Andale is the first company to recognize and address the needs of high-volume auction sellers by delivering the industry's only resource for automating and managing all aspects of selling - from product merchandising to financial management, sales automation, customer communications, supplier sourcing and other back office services."

An elite group of auction sellers and savvy businesses are the primary force driving one of the fastest growing sectors of eCommerce - Dynamic Marketplaces. Vernon Keenan of Keenan Vision estimates the total volume of transactions flowing through dynamic markets by the year 2004 will be $561 billion. Keenan Vision also estimates that the services market for e-merchant services companies like Andale, many of whom will also service Internet exchanges, will be over $49 billion in 2004.

According to George Zachary, partner at Mohr, Davidow Ventures and newly appointed Andale board member, "Andale stands out in the auction market because it offers much more than just image hosting, multiple ad submissions, or a cross-market search capability. Andale delivers on the business potential for auction sites, reverse auctions and business-to-business marketplaces. They bring that critical back-office component that makes it possible, for the first time, to use auction markets as a significant sales channel for small and medium size businesses."

A New Class of eCommerce – High Volume Auction Selling
While sites like eBay and Amazon were originally positioned as consumer-to-consumer marketplaces, they are quickly evolving to become serious business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales channels. Yet when leveraged beyond just casual selling, auction sites can be extremely inefficient. Posting one auction can take well over an hour of manual effort.

"In any one week, I will have as many as 200 items up for auction online," said Jon Thurmond, owner of Grandview, Missouri-based Collectorholics. In the last two years, Thurmond has had to close three of his five stores due to a 50-80% reduction in mall traffic. However, his business is far from failing. It's just that his primary source of income now is selling his antiques, toys and other items at online auction on sites like eBay.

Thurmond continued, "Unfortunately, with the way auction sites are set up now, this is as much as any one person can do. It is an extremely tedious process. My goal is to double my business and put in half the time and effort by taking advantage of the auction automation and back office management functionality Andale offers."

He adds, "Andale represents a HUGE time savings to me in automating ad submission across multiple markets, email responses, invoicing, shipping calculation, and financial reporting alone. My plan is to quickly get up to 500+ items for sale a week. Looking forward, I think Andale can be the catalyst that really boosts my business."

Andale – A New Approach to Auction Selling
Dynamic markets offer more opportunity than almost any other sales channel. Opening up access to these markets and integrating Auction Business Management services that help automate the process could allow sellers and businesses to spend more time actually selling products. With Andale, one stop on the Web provides all the services serious sellers need to dramatically increase their earning potential across business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets.

"Much like Intuit with QuickBooks revolutionized the small business market with financial management, Andale is going to significantly impact the Internet auction space with auction management," said Jim Breyer, managing partner at Accel Partners and newly appointed board member. "With its focus on back-office automation, linking suppliers with sellers, and driving cross-selling relationships, Andale is setting the pace for how businesses are going to leverage dynamic markets moving forward."