Crystal Reference Systems Closes Early-Stage Funding and Appoints New Board Member

Crystal Reference Systems Closes Early-Stage Funding and Appoints New Board Member

Sets Goal of Second Round of Funding to Enable Planned US Expansion

NEW YORK, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Crystal Reference Systems, parent company of Crystal Semantics, the context targeting company, and Crystal Reference, a leading provider of reference content, today announced the closing of its early-stage funding at $1,938,000 USD (1,030,000 pounds Sterling). Additionally the company announces the appointment of Evan Rudowski, formerly managing director of Excite Europe, joins the board as Non-Executive Director.

Crystal Semantics, a UK based company, provides contextual Internet search solutions and is a developer of the world's first Sense Engine technology. Led by world-renowned linguistics professor, David Crystal, Crystal Semantics is set to revolutionize online contextual advertising with the first Sense Engine Technology solution, Textonomy Advance.

This early-stage funding follows an initial investment from Finance Wales, the organization set up by the Welsh Development Agency to help drive innovation and growth in Welsh business. Other investors include: the National Assembly of Wales and HSBC. This round of funding will enable Crystal Semantics to expand its staff and resources in order to further develop and successfully promote Textonomy Advance. An anticipated second-round of funding is expected later this year in order to establish a strong U.S. presence.

Evan joins the board of Crystal Reference Systems during a significant time in its development. "Evan's considerable experience and knowledge of the online and internet industries for the past seventeen years across both Europe and the U.S. will help further guide Crystal Semantics' strategic direction and continued growth," says Ian Saunders, Managing Director of Crystal Reference Systems. "Evans appointment and the closing of our early-stage funding marks a change in our development, helping us launch more products based on our formidable Textonomy technology solutions."

As Managing Director at Excite.com, Evan played a key role in the development of the company's portal strategy and turned Excite's City.net travel service into the number one travel site on the web. Evan was Managing Director of Excite Europe from 1998 to 2001, and administered all aspects of the company's activities, employing 190 employees across Europe and generating annual revenues of $30 million. Evan began his online career at Times Mirror's Newsday and New York Newsday, where he worked on the development and launch of some of the earliest online newspaper ventures in the U.S. Evan is currently Founder and Managing partner of Atlantic Leap Ventures Ltd. Atlantic Leap specializes in helping interactive media, commerce and technology companies successfully enter and expand in Europe.

Commenting on the company's fundraising and prospects, Finance Wales Senior Investment Manager Michael Bakewell said, "Text-based data solutions are used everyday in applications such as search engines, contextual advertising and e-commerce activity, and they represent huge potential market opportunities for this company."

To learn more about Crystal Semantics, visit http://www.crystalsemantics.com/.

About Crystal Semantics

Crystal Semantics has developed Textonomy, the first Sense Engine to deliver significantly more accurate and powerful Internet search and contextual results. By applying human "senses" and concepts that current algorithms, semantic systems and other statistical techniques cannot match, Textonomy uniquely uses human linguistic intuition, tapping into the semantic relationships between words and the contexts in which they occur. The Textonomy suite of products includes solutions for search and navigation, e-commerce and contextual advertising.

Based in Holyhead, UK, Crystal Semantics is a division of Crystal Reference Systems Limited -- an internet content and search company. The company was founded in 2001 by Professor David Crystal, a world authority in linguistics, and managing director, Ian Saunders. It has provided online content for many major publishers including Penguin Books, A&E Television Networks and Webster Publishing and is one of the fastest growing online content publishers in Europe. For more information on Crystal Semantics, please visit: http://www.crystalsemantics.com/.


Source: Crystal Semantics

CONTACT: US, Katherine Foster of Connors Communications,
+1-212-798-1409, katherine@connors.com; or UK & Europe, Alex Crawshaw,
alex@piratecomms.com, or David Pincott, david@piratecomms.com, or Kate Bonner,
kate@piratecomms.com, all of Pirate Communications, +011-44-20-7297-3350, all
of Crystal Semantics

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


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