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Contact:
Beth Randolph Taylor American Century 816.340.7673 Samira Abrari Corticon Technologies 650.212.2424 pr@corticon.com
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KANSAS CITY, MO., MARCH 26, 2001—American Century Ventures, the strategic investment group for American Century, today announced an investment in Silicon Valley-based Corticon Technologies, Inc.
Corticon Technologies' mission is to provide leading Internet infrastructure software for knowledge automation. Corticon Technologies, with headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., develops Internet-enabled dynamic applications that capture, optimize and automate the critical knowledge that drives business value.
"American Century believes Corticon's technology could be a tool that enables us to maintain our innovation and leadership in investment management process and practices as well as research and development," said Harold Bradley, president of American Century Ventures.
In active portfolio management at mutual fund companies like American Century, Bradley said, the decision making process is affected by investment drivers such as earnings and revenue models, market capitalization, growth rates and bond yields.
"Corticon's breakthrough products empower our customers to achieve unprecedented levels of enterprise automation," said Mark Allen, chief executive officer of Corticon Technologies. "We provide proprietary advancements that enable our users, often business people without programming skills, to capture and adapt in real-time the knowledge that drives their critical business decisions."
In addition, Corticon's software automatically identifies and resolves conflicts and unforeseen circumstances, capturing knowledge as complete and unambiguous business rules.
"It's this breakthrough advancement that clearly positions Corticon as the leader in this emerging market," Allen added.
Corticon Technologies initially has targeted its products to address a number of critical issues facing the financial services and insurance industries, ranging from real-time compliance management and portfolio optimization to insurance risk and claims management.
The name Corticon means an adaptable, reusable unit of intelligence, used to automate decision making in a consistent and scalable manner. The term derives from cortex, like cerebral cortex or cortical synapse. More information is on Corticon's Web site at www.corticon.com.
American Century Ventures' mission is to make investments in companies that complement the strategic direction of American Century and whose technology or products American Century can use to improve its business and help its investors.
To date, American Century Ventures has invested more than $60 million in 12 portfolio companies. Additional information about American Century Ventures can be found at its Web site, www.americancenturyventures.com.
American Century is a premier investment manager serving nearly two million individual and institutional investors. Through its broad selection of 75 mutual funds and other investments, the Kansas City, Missouri-based company manages about $90 billion in assets. James E. Stowers Jr. founded the company in 1958 and serves as chairman. His son, James E. Stowers III, is co-chairman and William M. Lyons is president and chief executive officer. For the past two years American Century has been selected as one of FORTUNE Magazine's 100 Best Companies to Work for in America. Visit www.americancentury.com for additional company information.
