VALUE COMMERCE

ValueCommerce Co Ltd today announced that it has exclusively acquired the assets (directory business and operations) of Looksmart Ltd’s wholly-owned Japanese subsidiary, LookSmart Japan KK, for an undisclosed amount. This includes the Japanese directory with 318,000 site listings; all staff and infrastructure; as well as the exclusive rights in Japan for a suite of advanced technologies to further develop, maintain and diversify the directory.

The Looksmart Japan assets will be injected into a separate subsidiary, 100% owned by ValueCommerce and the new company will continue to operate under the Looksmart Japan brand name and office. There will be no changes to the day to day operations of the business. All existing LookSmart staff will remain with the company and all operations and technologies will be run out of Japan. In fact under ValueCommerce, the Looksmart Japan business will gain significant additional resources in areas of marketing, infrastructure, R & D, sales and customer support; it is expected that this will greatly assist the Looksmart Japan business to continue to successfully grow and expand its service here in Japan. Tim Williams, founder and chairman of ValueCommerce, will assume the role of President and Representative Director for the subsidiary.

ValueCommerce Co Ltd Chief Executive Officer, Brian Nelson, said that the aim of the acquisition is to “continue our strategy of establishing ValueCommerce as the major player in internet, email, and mobile sales and marketing solutions in Japan. Through the LookSmart acquisition, the ValueCommerce group will add monetized OEM directory and search services to its suite of ecommerce solutions which will enable the company to work more closely with top media partners and ad agencies as well as greatly expanding reach for its advertisers.”

Paul Siminsky, COO of LookSmart international stated “We are very happy to have found such a dominant and synergistic local partner as ValueCommerce for our Japanese business. We are confident that by combining the media, technologies, and sales power of ValueCommerce with the directory, distribution network and agency sales channel of LookSmart Japan that the business can aggressively be taken to the next level”

	[ For Reference ]
	About LookSmart LookSmart is a leader in commercial search services and a developer of innovative web search solutions. The Company provides consumers with highly relevant search results through a distribution network that includes LookSmart.com and other top portals and ISPs, while delivering targeted sales leads to online businesses. LookSmart is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit www.looksmart.com
	About LookSmart Japan Looksmart first began compiling its Japanese directory in 1998 before setting up operations in Japan in 2000. LookSmart Japan has been operating Japan’s leading fully managed OEM directory with 318,000 listings, categorized under 23,000 categories compiled by professional editors over a collective work period that equates to 25 years in man hours. The directory provides media partners with high quality content as well as search advertising revenues generated from a diverse base of 25,000 commercial listings in the directory. Some of Looksmart Japan’s current media partners include: MSN, Excite, Fresh Eye To learn more about Looksmart Japan, visit www.Looksmart.co.jp (Japanese)