Warrantynow Secures $6 Million in Funding from Founders of Leading Technology Companies

Recent Round of Funding Led By Founders of CNET and Gateway, Inc.

May 22, 2000 San Francisco
WarrantyNow, the leading enabler of online customer service solutions, announced that it has closed $6 million in financing. Investing in this round of funding are a number of successful entrepreneurs including Halsey Minor, chairman and founder of CNET, Inc., Ted Waitt, chairman and founder of Gateway, Inc., Eric Greenberg, chairman and founder of Scient and Marc Benioff, chairman and founder of Salesforce.com. WarrantyNow will utilize these funds to expand its efforts to provide retailers with the solutions they need to deliver quality customer service to consumers and ensure success in today's online marketplace.

"We have attracted a group of investors that bring a high level of strategic value to our company," said Dave Burlington, president of WarrantyNow. "Participation by the founders of such large, influential companies in this round of funding further reflects the need for online retailers to provide shoppers with specialized and focused customer service offerings in order to create and maintain long-term customer relationships."

A recent report by Forrester Research, a leading industry research firm, stated "Leaders will need to focus on hard assets that support high sales volumes and lower costs per transaction: a large, loyal customer base; in-house fulfillment capabilities; and a rock-solid internal organization. Online retailers must strike back at brand confusion and product duplication by distinguishing themselves through customer service."

Companies ranging in size from large corporations to small start-ups can use WarrantyNow's innovative Internet product protection solutions to offer online consumers the best customer service in the industry. WarrantyNow's product protection plans have become the industry standard (benchmark) partially due to the access customers have to over 60,000 service centers nationwide. WarrantyNow's turnkey solution seamlessly integrates with e-commerce sites, allowing them to offer the broadest spectrum of online service plans and extended warranties to their customers, while also establishing an additional profit center that can increase profit margins by as much as forty percent. In addition, online consumers can access their personal portfolio to track online purchases, expiration dates, and other product information through WarrantyNow's exclusive management tool.