Mercent CEO to Present at Montgomery Technology Conference


SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - March 6, 2008) - Mercent, a provider of online marketing technology and services for retail merchants, today announced that Mercent Chairman and CEO Eric Best is scheduled to present Tuesday, March 11th at 9:30 AM (PDT) at the 5th Montgomery Technology Conference in Santa Monica, CA.

Founded by veterans of Amazon.com, Mercent provides online marketing technology and services to help retail merchants optimize performance across online channels. Mercent's on-demand software platform, Mercent Retail, increases customer revenue and gross margins by promoting the right products with the right merchandising offers and advertising placement. The company secured a $6.5M Series B round of venture capital investment from Madrona Venture Group, TVC Capital, and The Hillman Company in December 2007.

At the Montgomery event, Mr. Best will review Mercent's early-stage achievements, market position, customer portfolio and value proposition, product and service offerings, competitive strengths, capitalization history, and operating goals for 2008 and beyond.

"As a hosted advertising service for retail merchants, Mercent operates at the epicenter of software-as-a-service, online advertising, and e-commerce," states Best. "Demonstrated double-digit CAGR* in each of these sectors means Mercent is ideally positioned for high growth. This market position combined with predictable, recurring software subscription revenue model and strong customer references from some of the world's leading retail brands offer positive indicators of Mercent's future success and value creation."

The Montgomery Technology Conference will gather a highly select group of 750-plus venture, private equity, public institutional investors and senior technology executives from around the world. Conference highlights include 90 high-quality private companies, 50 industry-leading public companies, industry keynotes and panels.

*A Gartner report from August 2007 predicts that SaaS adoption in the Enterprise will rise at a 22% CAGR through 2011. Worldwide total software revenue for software as a service (SaaS) within the enterprise software markets is projected to surpass $5.1 billion in 2007, a 21 percent increase from 2006 revenue ($4.2 billion), according to Gartner, Inc. The market is poised for strong growth through 2011, when worldwide revenue will reach $11.5 billion.

According to Forrester Research, US online retail reached $175 billion in 2007 and is projected to grow to $335 billion by 2012. Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce continues its double-digit year-over-year growth rate, in part because sales are shifting away from stores and in part because online shoppers are less sensitive to adverse economic conditions than the average US consumer.

And be ready for a sustained surge in online advertising. According to an October 2007 Forrester Research report, online advertising dollars will reach $61 billion by 2012, a compound annual increase of 27% over the next five years.

About Mercent

Founded by veterans of Amazon.com, Mercent provides online marketing technology and services to help retail merchants optimize performance across online channels. Mercent's on-demand platform, Mercent Retail, increases revenue and gross margins by promoting the right products with the right merchandising offers and advertising placement. Mercent Retail provides a single point of integration between existing retail management systems and a network of more than 50 leading online marketing channels including transactional marketplaces such as Amazon.com and SHOP.COM, shopping portals such as Shopping.com and Shopzilla, and affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare and Performics -- making it easy for merchants to automate, measure, and optimize online product merchandising campaigns through these channels. Mercent customers include 1-800-Flowers, Benefit Cosmetics, REI, GUESS?, Bass Pro Shops, Redcats Group, Celebrate Express, Levenger, and other leading retailers. Mercent is an Amazon.com Certified System Integrator, Buy.com Gold Certified Partner, and SHOP.COM Certified Data Feed Provider. Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mercent.com.