Online Venture Capital Firm Plans Excite Campaign

Technology Funding in San Mateo, CA, an online venture capital firm, signed up with Excite Inc. for a Web-based marketing campaign.

Under the terms of the agreement, The Excite Network’s visitors will have access to Technology Funding’s site through a sustained and targeted banner campaign. Spending was not disclosed.

The campaign will direct traffic to www.techfunding.com, Technology Funding’s site that recently received an exemption from the Securities and Exchange Commission to accept credit cards for the purchase of shares.

The fund, Technology Funding Venture Capital Fund VI (VC-6), is said to be the first entirely online offering and allows investors to participate in a professionally managed venture capital fund for as little as $1,000.

Technology Funding will be promoted through extensive banner ad appearances on www.excite.com and www.webcrawler.com as well as on Excite’s co-branded areas of Netscape’s NetCenter.

“We have a unique two-fold challenge of educating consumers about venture capital and giving them the confidence to become investors entirely through an online medium,” said Charles Kokesh, president of Technology Funding. “Far- reaching online exposure is essential. . . . We plan to develop a series of informational and entertaining banner ads and leverage the power of Excite’s MatchLogic online advertising management service to target ad placement and evaluate performance.”

Technology Funding says it pioneered public venture capital partnerships in 1982 and ranks among the top 20% of U.S. venture capital firms in total assets under management.

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