NEWTON, Mass., July 16, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- LifeFX, Inc. (Nasdaq:LEFX), the leading developer of life-like virtual people for the Internet, today announced it has received its full commitment of $5 million from its partner company and largest shareholder, Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE). This investment, which was effected through the exercise of outstanding warrants held by Safeguard, increases Safeguard's ownership of LifeFX to 43.7% of LifeFX's outstanding shares. Under the terms of the deal announced in January, Safeguard exercised all 10,199,119 of its $0.01 warrants and 1,459,205 of its $2.50 warrants, which provided $3.75 million of cash to LifeFX. Safeguard exercised another 500,000 of its $2.50 warrants today, completing Safeguard's commitment of $5 million to LifeFX.
"We are very pleased with LifeFX's progress since their introduction of commercially available technology. The response from customers, technology partners and media has consistently exceeded our expectations," said Garret Melby, Vice President, Safeguard Scientifics and Director of LifeFX. "This investment reflects our confidence in their technology, management and ability to attain their milestones."
"Safeguard's partnership and ongoing strategic support has afforded us the opportunity to maintain our business objectives and continue our momentum," said Lucie Salhany, CEO and co-president of LifeFX. "We are delighted to have Safeguard as a partner."
About Safeguard (www.safeguard.com)
Safeguard is a leader in identifying, developing and operating emerging technology companies. Safeguard currently focuses primarily on the infrastructure technology industry, including communications, software and eServices. Safeguard provides management support and operations services to its partner companies and leverages its vast network resources to their benefit as strategic partners, customers, test beds and sales channels. The Safeguard network consists of over 40 direct holdings and an extended network of over 250 technology-centric companies.
About LifeFX
Lifef/x, Inc., a Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE) partner company, is creating the face of the Internet by developing photo-realistic, digital human faces, or LifeFX Stand-In(tm) virtual people, that can interact in real time. LifeFX Stand-In(tm) virtual people will be used by Web businesses as life-like customer-service and sales representatives, guides, teachers and entertainers, while consumer applications will include e-mail, instant messaging and chat rooms. The LifeFX technology was originally developed for professional medical applications by the University of Auckland, with which LifeFX has an exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, paid up license. LifeFX holds three patents and has five pending. For more information about LifeFX, visit http://www.lifefx.com. For application ideas and demos, visit http://www.facemail.com
Statements made in this news release, other than those concerning historical information, should be considered forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are made based on management's belief as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the "safe-harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. LifeFX Inc.'s future results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements because of a variety of factors, including the ability of the company to implement its business strategy; the ability of the company to achieve the intended benefits of this strategy; the ability of the company to complete development of its technology; the ability of the company to achieve success in forging strategic relationships; adoption of the technology by major consumer and commercial Web sites; the ability of the company to commercialize the technology before competitors; the ability of the company to retain key employees; and those factors identified in Lifef/x, Inc.'s annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2000, and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.