i2i Venture: Collaboration with Thomson of Canada, Investment in Corus.

i2i venture has signed a far-reaching collaboration agreement with Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company for its investments. For example, the family holds 73 per cent of Thomson Corp., a quoted media/content/IT corporation in Canada. Woodbridge has total assets of approximately USD 25 bn.

i2i venture is a recent venture capital start-up established by Adcore, Skandia Investment and Ole Oftedal. The collaboration with Woodbridge provides i2i venture access to extensive investment capacity, a necessary factor for investments in established companies with global growth potential. Woodbridge’s investment perspective is long term and it views the Nordic region as an attractive market for new technology.

i2i venture works closely with Adcore in the technology and business potential evaluation of investment opportunities. Adcore’s 1,800 employees in 13 countries will also be able to assist i2i in its international expansion.

i2i venture is investing SEK 70 m in Corus Technologies, making it the single biggest owner. Corus Technologies is developing a concept for the integration of various IT systems. Corus has developed an integration engine which enables applications to communicate and businesses to work in a more process-oriented manner. This is particularly important coincident with mergers, where different system environments need to be coordinated quickly and in a cost-efficient manner.

Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer recently presented Corus with this year’s IT Challenger 2000 award. Corus, which many commentators consider has a globally leading technology concept, will now pursue the internationalization of its operations more aggressively. Corus currently has a presence in Sweden, Finland and the UK.

Stockholm, 6 November 2000

i2i venture AB