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BE INC. COMPLETES $14 MILLION FINANCING
Solid financial foundation provided by key silicon
valley firms
MENLO PARK, Calif (April 15, 1996) - Be, Inc., the
company founded by Jean-Louis Gassée, announced today
that it has completed a private round of financing in excess
of $14 million. Several leading Silicon Valley venture
capital firms, including August Capital, New Enterprise
Associates (NEA) and Alta Partners are leading the
financing.
"This gives us the resources we need to respond to the
demand we're already experiencing from the marketplace,"
stated Mr. Gassée, Be's President and Chief Executive
Officer. "Strong, sophisticated investors supporting our
business will help us achieve our potential in emerging
application segments, such as digital audio, digital video,
the Worldwide Web, and image processing, where the BeBox(tm)
shows performance and capabilities out of the reach of older
platforms."
Late last year, Be demonstrated a new personal computer
system, called the BeBox, that can simultaneously handle
multiple audio sources (including digital audio, analog
audio, and MIDI), multiple video sources, and communication
with multiple Internet web sites - while at the same time
handling personal computer capabilities such as file and
database management, 3-D computation, and other functions.
The company demonstrated these capabilities, which the
company considers "entry-level," on a personal computer
system priced squarely in the center of current mainstream
personal computer price points.
Be delivers this level of personal computing power by
making use of multiple PowerPC microprocessors in each
BeBox, and through use of the Be Operating System (Be
OS(tm)) - a new multiprocessing, multi-threaded operating
system ideal for media and communications intensive
applications. The BeBox offers an exciting alternative to
the current evolutionary approach to personal computing
platforms, designed to meet the demands of sophisticated
computer users and developers who are frustrated by the
limitations of current PC architectures.
Be, Inc. is now preparing to ship the BeBox system to
customers. The recently completed financing provides the
company with a solid financial foundation on which to launch
its products. The company is ramping up production
capability, and is establishing distribution in North
America, in major countries in Europe, and in Japan and
Australia in the Pacific. Be plans to use the proceeds from
the financing to provide working capital to fund its growth
and to continue its product development plans.
Be makes extensive use of the Internet to communicate
with its customers and developers, and has plans to expand
this presence. As the company begins general product
shipments in June, it will provide customers with on-line
ordering and configuration capabilities for BeBox products,
as well as support for its base of value-added resellers and
other distributors. Be's worldwide web site can be found at
http://www.be.com.
"We believe that Be has an excellent chance of winning at
the intersection of digital media and the Internet. Our goal
is to provide a solid financial footing to complement the
excellent technology foundation already in place," said
David Marquardt, general partner at August Capital. "Because
they have started anew, without the baggage of legacy code,
we're likely to see Be add new functionality and increase
performance at a rate faster than is possible with older
operating systems."
August Capital, NEA and Alta Partners are the lead
investors in this financing, a round which also includes
investments by AVI Capital and Stanford University. In
addition, several previous Be investors are also
participating in this round.
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About Be, Inc.
Be, Inc. was founded by Jean-Louis Gassée in 1990
to overcome the limitations of existing computer
architectures. With a team of industry-leading engineers and
business executives in the United States and Europe, the
company has positioned itself to become a key player in
fast-growing application markets. Be, Inc. is headquartered
in Menlo Park, California.
Corporate Offices:
Be, Inc.
800 El Camino Real, Suite 300
Menlo Park, California 94025
Tel: (415) 462-4100
Fax: (415) 462-4129
Internet: http://www.be.com
e-mail: [email protected]
FTP site: ftp://ftp.be.com
European Offices:
Be, Inc.
Suite 336, Immeuble Olivetti
Rue de l'ancien marché
92800 Puteaux
France
Tel: (33) 1 49 06 73 77
Fax: (33) 1 49 06 73 79
Internet: http://www.beeurope.com
e-mail: [email protected]
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