By Beina Xu

June 29, 2010

Of DOW JONES LBO WIRE

Personal-finance portal Bankrate Inc. is planning two big acquisitions, less than a year after being purchased by private equity firm Apax Partners.

Bankrate inked a $205 million deal to buy NetQuote Inc., which is backed by Spectrum Equity Investors LP and Stripes Group LLC. It agreed to pay $145 million for CreditCards.com, which Austin Ventures purchased in 2006 with financing from American Capital Ltd. According to Moody’s Investors Service, Apax will contribute $80 million for the purchases, bringing the firm’s total equity contribution in the platform to roughly $650 million.

Apax Principal Sean Fernandes said the two deals will give Bankrate “market leading positions,” adding that the firm will focus on integration and organic growth going forward.

Bankrate upsized a proposed senior secured notes offering to $300 million from $280 million, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. The demand for the notes was “very strong,” Fernandes said.

Bankrate, Spectrum, Austin Ventures and American Capital executives were not available to comment.

Roughly $238 million of Bankrate subordinated shareholder notes will be converted into preferred stock, Moody’s said.

The deal will roughly double the company’s revenue, said Moody’s, which assigned Bankrate a B2 corporate credit rating. Bankrate’s revenue for the 12 months ended March 31, pro forma for the acquisitions, was about $258 million, Moody’s said. S&P expects to give a B corporate credit rating after the deal closes.

Denver-based NetQuote helps customers choose from around 4,000 agents selling auto, health, life and home insurance. Spectrum and Stripes acquired NetQuote in 2005.

CreditCards.com is an online comparison-shopping engine for credit cards. Austin Ventures led an October 2006 buyout of the company. In 2007, CreditCards.com filed for an initial public offering worth up to $115 million but withdrew the offering due to unfavorable market conditions.

Apax bought Bankrate last September for $571 million, in a notable all-equity deal, after the company rejected the idea of introducing leverage into the deal structure. Fernandes said it had been a “very conscious” decision to undertake the deal with all equity.

“We bought the business all-equity because it has a strong growth profile,” he said.

Bankrate offers information on mortgages, home equity loans and credit cards through its online portal. Its operations include Interest.com, Mortgage-calc.com, Nationwide Card Services Inc. and Savingforcollege.com.

Sandata Expanding Senior Team to Support its Growing Information Technology Infrastructure

Port Washington, NY - April 27, 2010: Stripes Group, a growth private-equity firm, uses in-house recruiting to hire Ed Zecchini, as EVP and CTO to join Sandata.

Sandata, LLC, a leading nationwide provider of information technology solutions to the home healthcare industry, has hired Edward Zecchini as its new EVP and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Mr. Zecchini has over 20 years of successful operational leadership and management of IT organizations in the healthcare, information and publishing industries. Mr. Zecchini had been the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at HealthMarkets, Inc., a $2 billion health and life insurance company, where he was responsible for the IT vision, strategy and resources, including a staff of 350 IT professionals. Mr. Zecchini also had been the CIO of Thomson Healthcare, a $500 million healthcare information company with direct and indirect responsibility for nearly 300 professionals.

Mr. Zecchini will be responsible for developing and implementing the strategy for Sandata’s information technology and software product offerings, including all development, production and delivery of Sandata’s solutions. Gary Stoller will remain Chief Information Officer, reporting to Mr. Zecchini, and continue to be actively involved with day-to-day technology deployment as well as managing special IT-related projects.

Harold S. Blue, CEO of Sandata, stated that “Adding Ed to our senior management team culminates the restructuring process that Sandata began a year ago. He joins at a crucial point for Sandata as we embark on a significant sales and marketing effort to drive adoption of Santrax, launch our new web-based agency management software, integrate Health Systems Solutions (HSS) and experience substantial growth of 30% or more in our revenue and customer base in 2010 and 2011. Ed’s experience with managing IT groups of all sizes and his healthcare knowledge will bring Sandata to the next level in a smart and efficient way.”

Mr. Zecchini commented, “I am extremely excited to join the Sandata team. The company is truly poised to be the preeminent technology leader in the home healthcare sector. Harold has recruited a fantastic group of senior leaders, whom I look forward to working with to accelerate our product development and help grow our Company.”

Among the initiatives that Mr. Zecchini will oversee are the integration of HSS, including merging and finalizing a technology roadmap that combines all of Sandata’s Medicaid and Medicare software products and consolidates the development and production environments into a unified platform.

Sandata continues to work through the integration of HSS and expects the process will be completed by the end of June, although a number of areas have already made significant progress and will be integrated much earlier. Sandata has committed to maintaining a presence in New York City to accommodate the HSS staff members who work there. Sandata is also in the midst of conducting due diligence on a number of other potential acquisitions, adding profitable business in the New York region, additional GPS-enabled mobile technology for the Medicaid and Private Duty customers and operational management software tools for Medicare-certified home care and hospice agencies.

Mr. Blue commented, “Sandata has an aggressive and ambitious growth plan over the next 24-36 months. We now have the management team in place to fully execute on our strategy. We are extremely excited to build upon our successful implementations in Tennessee and Florida, where we are adding more than 400 plus new agency customers, the recent acquisition of HSS, which brought another 200 customers, and overall momentum driven by healthcare reform, increased utilization of home healthcare and greater focus on fraud and abuse. I strongly believe that Sandata will be the undisputed leader in home healthcare for technology solutions and services.”

About Sandata, LLC
Sandata provides a complete package of information technology solutions, which includes scheduling, time and attendance, billing, payroll, compliance and clinical applications, for the home healthcare industry. Sandata’s suite of products includes Santrax, the market leading time and attendance product, web-based software solutions, voice biometrics to perform speaker verification, and a jurisdictional view dashboard solution for states, municipalities and the home healthcare agency market.

Sandata’s solutions enable home healthcare agencies, whether Medicare, Medicaid or Private Duty, government or managed care payors as well as any organization with a remote workforce to realize administrative cost savings, streamlined operational procedures, and significantly reduced paperwork burdens. Sandata has over 1,500 customers in 47 states using its products in more than 300,000 homes on a daily basis, and processes over 100 million telephone calls annually. Four data centers are strategically located across the country with state-of-the-art redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities. For additional information about Sandata, please visit: www.sandata.com.

Sandata Contact

Ellen Rich

erich@sandata.com

516-484-4400

About Stripes Group

Stripes Group, founded in 2003 and based in New York, is a private investment firm focused on growth-stage minority and majority investments in rapidly growing and profitable Internet, software-as-a-service (SaaS), technology-enabled services and branded consumer products companies. Stripes Group typically partners with founder-owned and operated companies that have had no prior institutional investors.

For more information on Stripes Group, visit www.stripesgroup.com.

Stripes Group Contact

Akshay Bhandari

akshay@stripesgroup.com

212‐823‐0732

March 24, 2010 - Stripes Group is pleased to announce that on March 24, 2010, its portfolio company Epic Advertising (epicadvertising.com) acquired Connexus Corporation (connexuscorp.com). The combined company forms one of the largest privately-owned digital media companies globally that offers best-in-class advertising services to branded advertisers as well as direct marketers.

Connexus, owner of Traffic Marketplace, is a top-ten branded online ad network and social media company. Traffic Marketplace delivers relevance in online display, registration path, mobile and social media advertising, empowering advertisers to reach, target, and engage their ideal audience. Epic Advertising is the world’s largest privately-owned performance network and search marketing company working with more than 45,000 advertisers and publishers to provide measurable internet advertising impact.

Together, the businesses are a one-stop interactive marketing company featuring best-in-breed brand and direct response campaign fulfillment, solving client needs across a wide range of digital traffic types including Display, Search, Social Media, Mobile, Video and E-mail. Epic and Connexus are able to provide advertisers with an integrated media plan that is traffic-type agnostic and serves to measure brand effectiveness and facilitate customer acquisition, targeting the right audience, at the right time, in the right channel.

Don Mathis, CEO of Epic, explained: “We are thrilled about this highly strategic acquisition which will solidify the Company’s market position, create an un-paralleled demand-side ad platform capability and accelerate our growth.”

Ken Fox, Founder and Managing Partner of Stripes Group, who will continue as a member of the Board of Directors added, “We are excited to support an exceptional management team at Epic in this acquisition. The combination of Epic and Connexus will create a leader in the industry with unmatched strategic resources to provide relevance and performance for their advertisers and publishers.”

“We’re combining two market leaders,” said Connexus CEO, Art Shaw. “Traffic Marketplace has been helping Fortune 500 companies build brand awareness and acquire customers by targeting consumers online, and Epic is the dominant player in customer acquisition for a range of advertisers. Both companies will continue to grow their core competencies, while we combine our data and technology to increase relevance across all our businesses.”

Epic was supported in this acquisition by its existing institutional investors, Stripes Group and TA Associates. Connexus was supported in this transaction by its existing institutional investors, Idealab, Insight Venture Partners, Oak Investment Partners, and Trilogy Capital Partners.

Transaction and Company Highlights

• Epic and Connexus combine to form one of the largest privately-owned digital media companies globally
• Together the businesses comprise a multichannel advertising resource featuring best-in-breed brand and direct response campaign fulfillment
• The combined company offers advertisers and publishers the ability to access Display, Search, Social Media, Mobile, Video and E-mail digital media traffic from over 225 countries and territories around the world
• Epic was supported in this acquisition by existing institutional investors Stripes Group and TA Associates
• Ken Fox will continue to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Company

Stripes Group Contact:

Wane Marino

Wayne@Stripesgroup.com

212-823-0733

NEW YORK, April 12, 2010 - Folica.com (www.folica.com), a leading online beauty retailer, today announced the appointment of John Hetherington as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.

Hetherington brings more than 25 years of senior finance and operations experience at Frederic Fekkai & Co., L’Oreal USA and Chanel, Inc. to his role as CFO of Folica. Hetherington served for six years as Chief Financial Officer of Fekkai, LLC, where he played a significant role in the sale of the company to Proctor & Gamble in 2008, which generated a substantial return on investment to the owners. Previously, Hetherington spent 16 years in multiple senior financial management roles at L’Oreal USA. Most recently, Hetherington was President and Owner of Lighthouse Strategic Advisors, where he provided long-range planning, capital needs projections and financial controls to small and start-up companies.

“John has spent his entire career in the highly competitive consumer products business, and has held instrumental financial leadership roles in the beauty industry’s most influential brands. He has a proven track record of driving growth and return on investment. We’re thrilled to welcome someone with John’s wealth of experience to the Folica leadership team,” said Carl Gish, Folica CEO.

Folica, one of the most successful privately-held Internet companies in the U.S., is an online leader in the multi-billion dollar beauty and personal care industry. The company is highly profitable and growing rapidly.

“Folica is a well-run, fast-growing online retailer that has capitalized on cutting-edge technology and excellent customer service to build a significant business. I’m excited to join the leadership team, which has the talent and experience necessary to take Folica to the next level,” said Hetherington.

Hetherington earned an MBA from Rutgers’ Graduate School of Management and a BS in Economics from Virginia Tech, and is a CPA in the state of New Jersey.

About Folica, Inc.
Founded in 1998 and based in New York City, Folica.com is a leading online destination for hair products, tools and expert advice on hair care and styling. Folica.com carries more than 5,000 products from premium brands and features more than 50,000 customer reviews on its site. For more information, visit www.folica.com.

Press Contact:

Andrea Riggs

Folica Corporate Communications

917-572-5555

Andrea.riggs@folica.com

Stripes Contact:

Wayne Marino

Wayne@stripesgroup.com

212-823-0733

Sandata to Broaden Product Offering for Medicare Home Health Agencies and Add Leading-Edge GPS Tracking Technology

Port Washington, NY - March 29, 2010: Sandata, LLC, a leading nationwide provider of information technology solutions to the home healthcare industry, has acquired the home healthcare assets of Health Systems Solutions, Inc. (”HSS”).

Harold S. Blue, CEO of Sandata said, “The combination of Sandata and HSS creates the strongest and most robust technology company in the home healthcare industry.  Sandata is pleased to add HSS products and services to our numerous technology offerings. With this addition we are the leading technology company in the home healthcare industry servicing Medicare-certified, Medicaid and Private Duty home healthcare care agencies in addition to state payors and managed care organizations.  Sandata is also delighted to add the HSS home healthcare team of professionals to our group of dedicated associates; they will bring deep knowledge of home healthcare and broad relationships with many leaders in the industry.”

This transaction will significantly enhance Sandata’s already robust product lines with several new products and services, including:

• Advantage - a suite of web-based, integrated applications designed to facilitate the clinical, financial and operational aspects of Medicare agencies
• Clinical PDA - Point-of-Care “Smart Phone” applications that enable the real-time capture of clinical information, real-time data transmissions and improved communication among care team members
• Analyzer - decision support tools that enable home healthcare agencies to manage Medicare PPS episodes on a real-time basis; executive dashboard provides instant desktop access to key statistics and metrics
• Performance Advisors - a specialized healthcare consulting service that helps agencies understand and improve outcomes by capturing and benchmarking key data to reveal opportunities to improve quality of care, financial performance and business operations
• Vivid - a set of hosted, enterprise and IVR telephony products for Medicaid/Private duty agencies, which integrate client and caregiver profiles, scheduling, billing and payroll into a single, comprehensive tool
• Precise Trax^TM - a sophisticated GPS tracking application for mobile devices, which can be used to pinpoint the location of field staff in any urban, suburban or rural environment; Sandata will utilize Precise Trax^TM under an exclusive license agreement

Stan Vashovsky, CEO of HSS, stated, “The decision to sell HSS’ Home Healthcare business to Sandata was driven by our desire to offer our clients and our employees a chance to be part of the undisputed technology leader in the Home Healthcare industry.  With the added benefit of Sandata’s engineering resources, financial strength, and reputation for delivering the highest customer satisfaction, we know that no one in the industry will be able to match the technological sophistication and depth of product functionality and services that will be available from Sandata.  HSS’ corporate management team will continue to work closely with Sandata as part of a Transition Services Agreement and has entered into a long-term strategic relationship with Sandata for Sandata to exclusively distribute our advanced tracking and location-based technology tools such as Precise Trax^TM.”

Bert E. Brodsky, Chairman of Sandata added, “We commend Stan and his team for their outstanding work in seeing HSS through a challenging period and building it into the world-class company it is today.  We look forward to working with the dedicated people who have been highly devoted to the company and its products, and serving their customers historically and for many years into the future.”

Sandata will add 38 HSS associates to its existing team of more than 160 and increase its customer base by approximately 200, bringing Sandata’s total base to more than 1,500 customers nationwide.  Utilizing HSS’ solutions augments Sandata’s strategic Medicare-certified offering, allowing Sandata to service any provider or payor in the market place.

About Sandata, LLC

Sandata provides a complete package of information technology solutions, which includes scheduling, time and attendance, billing, payroll, compliance and clinical applications, for the home healthcare industry.  Sandata’s suite of products includes Santrax, the market leading time and attendance product, web-based software solutions, voice biometrics to perform speaker verification, and a jurisdictional view dashboard solution for states, municipalities and the home healthcare agency market.

Sandata’s solutions enable home healthcare agencies, whether Medicare, Medicaid or Private Duty, government or managed care payors as well as any organization with a remote workforce to realize administrative cost savings, streamlined operational procedures, and significantly reduced paperwork burdens.  Sandata has over 1,500 customers in 47 states using its products in more than 300,000 homes on a daily basis, and processes over 100 million telephone calls annually.  Four data centers are strategically located across the country with state-of-the-art redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities.  For additional information about Sandata, please visit: www.sandata.com.

Sandata Contact

Ellen Rich

erich@sandata.com

516-484-4400

Stripes Contact

Akshay Bhandari

Akshay@stripesgroup.com

212-823-0732

Additionally, Sandata Receives New Senior-Term Loan from TD Bank

Port Washington, NY - March 25, 2010: Sandata, LLC, a leading nationwide provider of information technology solutions to the home healthcare industry, announced today that Stripes Group has completed a minority investment in the Company.  Ken Fox, Founder and Managing Partner of Stripes Group, will become a member of the Board of Sandata.  In connection with the Stripes investment, TD Bank has provided new senior debt financing to retire existing debt and to fund future growth.

Bert E. Brodsky, Chairman and Founder of Sandata said, “I am excited to have Stripes as my new partner who can help us manage the next stage of our evolution and growth.  We have spent a great deal of time evaluating potential investment partners, especially groups with experience in fragmented market spaces.  Stripes stood out among others in terms of their knowledge, technology focus and track record of success.”

Ken Fox added, “Stripes is thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Sandata, the market leading provider of technology solutions to the home healthcare industry, with a long track record of growth and profitability.  The Company is well positioned to take advantage of what we believe will be a period of hyper-growth as the home healthcare market continues to implement technology to improve quality of care, efficiency in operations, and reduce fraud and abuse.  Sandata fits perfectly with Stripes’ investment strategy of partnering with superior companies in high growth niches, to which we can bring our operating experience and help drive success.”

Harold S. Blue, CEO of Sandata, acknowledged, “The team at Stripes brings tremendous experience with rapidly growing technology companies and expertise in penetrating fragmented markets.  Sandata will benefit greatly from their insight as we seek to accelerate our growth and execute on a sales and marketing strategy designed to increase adoption of our leading technology solutions among home healthcare agencies and payors.”

About Sandata, LLC

Sandata provides a complete package of information technology solutions, which includes scheduling, time and attendance, billing, payroll, compliance and clinical applications, for the home healthcare industry.  Sandata’s suite of products includes Santrax, the market leading time and attendance product, web-based software solutions, voice biometrics to perform speaker verification, and a jurisdictional view dashboard solution for states, municipalities and the home healthcare agency market.

Sandata’s solutions enable home healthcare agencies, whether Medicare, Medicaid or Private Duty, government or managed care payors as well as any organization with a remote workforce to realize administrative cost savings, streamlined operational procedures, and significantly reduced paperwork burdens.  Sandata has over 1,500 customers in 47 states using its products in more than 300,000 homes on a daily basis, and processes over 100 million telephone calls annually.  Four data centers are strategically located across the country with state-of-the-art redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities.  For additional information about Sandata, please visit: www.sandata.com.

Sandata Contact

David Gershen

dgershen@sandata.com

516-484-4400

About Stripes Group

Stripes Group, founded in 2003 and based in New York, is a private investment firm focused on growth-stage minority and majority investments in rapidly growing and profitable Internet, software-as-a-service (SaaS), technology-enabled services and branded consumer products companies. Stripes Group typically partners with founder-owned and operated companies that have had no prior institutional investors.

For more information on Stripes Group, visit www.stripesgroup.com.

Stripes Group Contact

Akshay Bhandari

akshay@stripesgroup.com

212‐823‐0732

New York, NY - January 19, 2010 — Stripes Group, a private investment firm located in New York, has announced that Jason Santiago has joined the company as Vice President of Business Development.  Mr. Santiago will focus on sourcing investment opportunities from investment banking intermediaries — including private placement, M&A and industry coverage investment bankers — who represent high-growth companies across all sectors and geographies. In addition, Mr. Santiago will manage lender relationships on behalf of the firm and its portfolio companies.  He will be based in New York and report to Stripes Group managing partners Ken Fox and Dan Marriott.

Prior to joining Stripes Group, Mr. Santiago spent five years as an Investment Banker within the Private Placements Group at Cowen and Company, LLC in New York and San Francisco.  At Cowen, he was responsible for the execution of full-lifecycle equity and debt private placements.  He has successfully raised over $700 million in private equity capital for growth-stage companies across a variety of sectors, including Internet, Technology and Branded Consumer Products.

About Stripes Group

Stripes Group, founded in 2003 and based in New York, is a private investment firm focused on growth-stage minority and majority investments in rapidly growing and profitable Internet, software‐as‐a‐service, technology‐enabled services and branded consumer products companies. Stripes Group typically partners with founder‐owned and operated companies that have had no prior institutional investors.

For more information on Stripes Group, visit www.stripesgroup.com.

Stripes Group Contact

Wayne Marino

wayne@stripesgroup.com

70 East 55^th Street, 11^th Floor

New York, NY 10022

212‐823‐0733

http://www.stripesgroup.com/

Milford, CT, November 23, 2009 – Perimeter E-Security, the trusted market leader of information security services that delivers enterprise-class protection and compliance to companies of all sizes, announced the top ten biggest information security breaches and blunders of 2009.  According to Chief Technology Officer,Kevin Prince, there is a common thread between all of these incidents: they could have been avoided.

“2009 has been a year full of data breaches, compromises and exposures all around cyber-criminality.  These incidents could have been prevented by adopting basic security standards and embracing a culture of security,” added Prince.  “Most companies actually know exactly where they lack security and where their gaps and exposures are. But knowing this, they still ‘play with fire’ and hope that they won’t get burned. Now is the time for everyone to take into account of all the malicious breaches and blunders that have happened in the last year alone, and take the time to reconfigure their network protection systems to prevent these mishaps from happening to them.”

Here’s the list of the top 10 biggest information security breaches and blunders in 2009:

#10 – Malicious Codes’ Extended Stay

Hackers broke into web servers owned by a major domain registrar and hosting provider and planted rogue malware that resulted in the compromise of more than 573,000 debit and credit card accounts. The malicious code was in place for over three months. This type of “extended stay” of malicious code is a negative trend that showed progress in 2009.

#9 – The Ease of Hacking a CEO’s Mailbox

A significant hosted email provider offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who could hack into its CEO’s mailbox. The company used the authentication method, providing one-time pin code and even gave usernames and passwords. Hackers successfully broke in, bypassing the 2nd factor authentication using a cross site scripting vulnerability.

#8 – The Jealous Boyfriend

You can’t forget the man who sent spyware to his girlfriend, who then opened the email on her work computer, resulting in a data security breach on a major children’s hospital network. The hospital could have used a web content filtering solution, but even that wouldn’t completely eliminate the problem. This particular breach shows that some healthcare organizations can still be apathetic towards information security.

#7 – Macking

Media hacking or “macking” has become quite popular in 2009.  Macking, characterized as the lowest of the low hanging fruit, can be very profitable for cyber criminals in this day in age where search engines can be easily manipulated, botnets can send billions of email messages, and social network sites have worms that can spread messages.

#6 – Insiders Everywhere

This year was also the year of insider breaches. A temporary telecom company employee was arrested on charges of stealing personal information and then pocketing more than $70,000 by taking out short-term payday loans. Even one of the world’s leading anti-virus and internet security provider had an international office employee steal customers’ credit card numbers. Insider breaches will continue to be a rising threat for 2010 and beyond, as long as companies don’t have the proper policies in place to prevent them.

#5 – 160,000 California University records hacked

At one of California’s most esteemed universities, personal information of 160,000 current and former students and alumni may have been comprised. The breach was discovered April 21, 2009, but the database had been illegally accessed by hackers over six months prior in October 2008. Organizations must be constantly tracking and aware of hackers setting up shop on one or more of their systems.

#4 – Virginia Department of Health Professions Blackmail

The FBI and Virginia State Police have been hunting down hackers who demanded that the state pay $10 million dollars ransom for the return of millions of personal pharmaceutical records that claimed to have been deleted and stolen from the Prescription Monitoring Program. The alleged “deleted data” was backed up and secured within days of the ransom demand. Modern hackers are becoming more bold and fearless.

#3 – Google

In 2009, Google had its fair share of data breaches, in its Google apps, Google AdWords, Google Docs, Gmail and more. As one of the biggest internet organizations, it’s also one of the most targeted by hackers and other malicious threats.

#2 – Social Networking Sites

Twitter was hacked so many times in 2009 we could have a top 10 Twitter breach article by itself.

Whether it is individual accounts being compromised like Britney Spears, Twitter employees, or

Twitter 3rd parties, Twitter has equal opportunity exploitability.  Facebook, YouTube and MySpace aren’t any better.  Social networking sites have had a tough year as far as data breaches and blunders are concerned and it’s not going to be much better in 2010.

#1 – Nation’s largest payment processor is poster child of breaches

One of the nation’s leading payment processor is this year’s new poster child of data security breaches. The official court proceedings report that 130 million records were compromised. The company processes credit cards for over a quarter of a million merchants nationwide. They have had 31 separate lawsuits filed against them as a result of the breach and about 700 banks announced losses as well. The good news is that we caught the bad guys! Albert “Segvec” Gonzalez has been indicted by a federal grand jury in New Jersey along with two unnamed Russian conspirators.

“2009 was a banner year for negative information security news and as we enter 2010, we are seeing more regulations, more fines, and more lawsuit filings – all related to information security.  Data security breaches are nasty business and should be avoided at all costs,” added Prince.

About Perimeter

Perimeter is the trusted market leader of information security services that delivers enterprise-class protection and compliance.ˇ Through its cost-effective and scalable SaaS platform, Perimeter offers the most comprehensive compliance, security and messaging services that include: hosted email, encrypted email, firewall management and monitoring, vulnerability scanning, host intrusion and prevention, email anti-virus and spam, remote data backup and email archiving. For more information about Perimeter visit www.perimeterusa.com.

###

Contacts

Ray Yeung / Maggie Duquin

Perimeter eSecurity 

yeung@braincomm.com / Duquin@braincomm.com              

212-986-6667

Wayne Marino

wayne@stripesgroup.com

Morgan Joseph Technology Newsletter Q&A

What do you see as the catalyst for future revenue and earnings growth?

Innovation…  At Stripes Group, we are “bottom-up micro investors.”   We look for profitable growing companies that have a unique value proposition and defensible competitive positioning - attributes typically evident in companies with a propensity for innovation in the technologies and/or business models they employ. 

For example, we recently invested in MyWebGrocer, a software-as-a-service (”SaaS”) company that provides a comprehensive e-commerce enablement platform for traditional grocers and a high-ROI proprietary online advertising network for large consumer products (”CPG”) companies.  The Company has devised a unique business model whereby it can easily allow traditional grocers to offer a full e-commerce experience to customers in a turn-key fashion, and then further leverage its e-commerce buying data coupled with loyalty card information to provide CPG advertisers with a holistic picture of the efficacy of their advertising spend.  Through its technology leadership and innovative business model, MyWebGrocer is able to offer unmatched services and value to its clients at a reasonable cost while generating significant growth and meaningful profitability.

In short, we believe that in an uncertain economy, the best way to drive profitable growth is through innovation of technologies and business models.  Innovative companies will continue to have strong revenue growth and, over time, be able to maintain and often increase profit margins.

What set of guidelines or target profile/criteria are you seeking from private, Growth Companies (technology) in today’s environment to consider an investment opportunity? 

Within the technology-enabled space, we tend to focus on B2B / B2C internet and SaaS companies. Specifically, sectors we focus on include IT business services, digital media, e-commerce, consumer Internet, enterprise software and IT services.

The companies we partner with achieve greater than 20% annual revenue growth, have proven business models, are profitable and have trailing twelve month revenues above $10M.

We have deep respect for bootstrapped businesses in which the management teams are significant equity shareholders, as we find we share their discipline around expense structures and how to most productively invest behind growth.

What does it take for a technology company to go public in this market and what do they need to do to differentiate themselves?

It’s encouraging to see the IPO window “open” in recent months.  In order to advocate taking one of our portfolio companies public, we need to have a high level of conviction that, at the time of the IPO, the company would be valued at $500M+, and that within two years of going public, the company would be able to achieve financial metrics that would support a $1B market capitalization.  The magic of reaching these milestones lies in the company’s ability to become a relevant and necessary shareholding to a broad investor base so that it can not only successfully access the capital markets to derive an operating edge, but also provide liquidity for large private shareholders such as Stripes Group.

What Technology Sectors do you consider to be ‘hot’ for the remainder of 2009 and will be even ‘hotter’ in 2010?

Generally, we continue to be excited about SaaS businesses and companies that are tool providers in the cloud. Also, we are excited about online retailers with innovative direct-to-consumer strategies, including unique sales models, exclusive inventory access, user content/communities and subscription services, since we believe these types of companies have the crucial ability to engage consumers beyond a simple online transaction or purchase.

Other sectors we think are interesting are data providers that are leveraging technology to allow their clients to make better business decisions. We believe these types of companies are emerging in a variety of segments, including online marketing, ad optimization and healthcare, to name a few.

What private technology companies do you believe are best positioned to be tomorrow’s ‘Category Gorilla’ or ‘Market Leader’ and why?

We are excited about the companies in our portfolio as some of them have emerged as category leaders and others are profitably growing into category leaders.

NetQuote is the Category Gorilla in providing comparison shopping for all types of insurance for consumers and small businesses.  NetQuote’s value proposition combined with strong management execution has produced great financial results, and we believe NetQuote is still early in capturing the potential for the business as it is the market leader in a very large market, insurance.

Folica is a great example of a compelling company well positioned to be a category leader in the online sale of hair and beauty products and information.  Folica develops innovative products, has a large vibrant community and sells third-party branded products all focused on hair and beauty.  The business has strong financial results and is emerging as the category leader with a strong value proposition that is taking share from other market participants

Epic Advertising: With greater than $200 million in annual revenues, expanding margins and solid growth, Epic has emerged as the Category Gorilla in performance-based online advertising.  Epic is a good example of a business that has innovated through technology and business processes to grow profitably and quickly through the downturn at a time when other online advertising businesses have not grown.

Read full article here (pdf)

Commentary begins on the bottom of page 28.

Leadership Track Record in Driving Accelerated Growth of Software and

 Managed Services Companies

Milford, CT, November 9, 2009 - Perimeter E-Security, the trusted market leader of information security services that deliver enterprise-class protection and compliance to companies of all sizes, today announced the appointment of Tim Harvey to the position of Chief Executive Officer.  An exceptional leader with deep software sector expertise, Tim has a track record in transitioning companies to their next growth stage. 

“We are delighted to welcome Tim as our new CEO; he is an accomplished software executive, whose leadership skills align with the accelerated growth track of Perimeter,” said Richard Dobrow, President  and Chief Operating Officer of Perimeter E-Security.  “Tim brings a rich history of experience in the software and managed services industry and we are confident that with his track record, Perimeter will reach new heights in its growth strategy as a market leader of information security and messaging services.

“Perimeter has a highly differentiated approach towards security, tremendous talent and an amazing growth opportunity,” said Tim Harvey.  “I look forward to bringing my experiences to further expand Perimeter’s scale in delivering superior value to its customers, partners and employees.”

Perimeter has experienced fast-paced growth and has established itself as the trusted and award-winning market leader with medium-sized financial institutions and today more than 2000 U.S. financial institution customers rely on Perimeter’s services.  As businesses across industries struggle with the cost, complexity and compliance requirements of managing and protecting their information, Perimeter has expanded its service offerings across broad industries.  The company continues to garner an accolade of awards, such as SC Magazine’s recent 5-Star award for Perimeter’s firewall services and the Radicati Top Player recognition for hosted business email service.

Most recently, Tim was the  CEO and President of XAware, a leading provider of commercial open source data integration software and services, where he led the strategy and transitioned the company from proprietary middleware to an open source vendor, resulting in its subsequent sale.  He joined XAware from S1 Corporation as Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Product Management where he delivered a significant increase in sales revenues and implemented new sales methodologies.

Prior to S1, Tim served as Chief Operating Officer at SynQuest where he helped manage the company’s significant growth leading to an IPO in August 2000 and subsequent merger.  He also served in other senior roles at Datalogix and Management Science America.  Tim graduated from the University of Florida with a BSBA in Finance and served four years as an officer in the United States Marine Corps.

 About Perimeter

Perimeter is the trusted market leader of information security services that delivers enterprise-class protection and compliance.ˇ Through its cost-effective and scalable SaaS platform, Perimeter offers the most comprehensive compliance, security and messaging services that include: hosted email, encrypted email, firewall management and monitoring, vulnerability scanning, host intrusion and prevention, email anti-virus and spam, remote data backup and email archiving. For more information about Perimeter visit www.perimeterusa.com.

Contacts

Ray Yeung / Maggie Duquin

Perimeter eSecurity 

yeung@braincomm.com / Duquin@braincomm.com              

212-986-6667

Stripes Group Contact

Wayne Marino

wayne@stripesgroup.com