Acquia Chosen to Present as Part of Launch Pad at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco

ANDOVER, MA--(Marketwire - April 21, 2008) - Acquia, a new software company that will provide value-added software products and services for the Drupal web collaboration and publishing platform, announced today that it is one of six new companies chosen to participate in the Launch Pad session at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco. As part of the event, Acquia will demonstrate how the Drupal social publishing system can be used to rapidly assemble community-based Web 2.0 sites without custom programming.

Hosted by TechWeb and O'Reilly Media, Inc, Web 2.0 Expo is the leading global gathering of developers, designers, marketers, and business professionals building the next generation Web. The Launch Pad program provides a unique public forum that is designed to showcase the best start-ups companies in the Internet world.

"It's an honor to be chosen as a Launch Pad company and introduce Acquia to the Web 2.0 Expo audience," said Jeff Whatcott, Acquia Communicator-in-Chief. "Launch Pad provides a unique opportunity to demonstrate how people can implement the Web 2.0 architecture of participation with the Drupal social publishing system."

Acquia plans to ship a commercially supported distribution of Drupal, code-named "Carbon," in the second half of this year. The Carbon distribution will include the Drupal 6 core release and essential extension modules for rapidly assembling compelling social publishing sites and applications. Additionally, Acquia plans to provide a range of maintenance and support subscriptions designed to meet the requirements of both individual developers and organizations utilizing the Carbon distribution. Subscribers will be able to harness the full open source power of Drupal without sacrificing the accountability and support of commercial software.

"We're happy to welcome these innovative startups in front of the largest gathering of the web community," said Brady Forrest, Web 2.0 Expo Co-Chair. "This year Launch Pad will not only spotlight some great new companies, but also give the budding entrepreneurs in the audience a taste of what it's like to be scrutinized by VCs."

The Launch Pad keynote session is scheduled for Thursday, April 24th at 1:30 pm PDT. The Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco will be held at Moscone West April 22 - 25. Additionally, Drupal will be represented at Web2open, the unconference co-located with Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco.

In addition to being selected for Launch Pad, Acquia has been selected as a finalist for the Red Herring 100 Award, a selection of the 100 most innovative private technology companies based in North America. The company has been identified as one of the top 200 out of more than 800 closely evaluated organizations that are leading the next wave of innovation.

About Web 2.0 Expo

Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by TechWeb (Formerly CMP) and O'Reilly Media, Inc., showcases the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation Web. This annual multi-track event brings together the people, ideas, connections, contacts, products, and companies to foster stronger Web 2.0 communities. Events are held in San Francisco, New York, Europe and Tokyo and feature luminary keynotes; over 150 speakers and panelists; detailed workshops; a Launch Pad start up program; an Explo floor; a Web2Open unconference; and networking events including Birds of a Feather sessions and the official South Park Crawl. Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco will host Launch Pad: VC Edition on Thursday, April 24th at 1:30 pm on the main stage at Moscone West. For more details on Launch Pad: VC Edition, please visit:http://www.web2expo.com/sf/launchpad.

About Acquia

Acquia is a ground-breaking open source software company providing value-added products and services for the wildly popular Drupal social publishing system. The people of Acquia believe that the open source development approach and social publishing technology have the power to connect people and unleash their collective creative potential in order to achieve great things. Company founders are Dries Buytaert, original Drupal creator and project lead, and Jay Batson, previously founding CEO of open source VOIP software company, Pingtel. Please visit http://acquia.com.

About Drupal

The Drupal social publishing system has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including single or multi-user blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management.

Assisted by a thriving ecosystem of consultants and developers, a diverse list of organizations are using Drupal including SonyBMG, Warner Brothers Records, New York Observer, Forbes, The Onion, Harvard University, and Amnesty International. A huge community has grown up around Drupal, with thousands of active contributors to the open source technology, including nearly 2000 community-developed modules for extending Drupal functionality. For more information, please visit http://drupal.org.

Contact Information: Contact: Jena Murphy Citigate Cunningham 617-374-4216