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Berlin, 20th September 2001
Berlin. - Berlin Weblicon Technologies AG, a shareholding of the PEPPERMINT. Financial Partners, provides for an optimised travel management, even when appointments change, with the help of their latest Online Organizer application. A cooperation agreement struck with the Hamburg-based BTO24 online travel agency for business travellers comprises the integration of the Weblicon innovation into their booking system. Thousands of business travellers will benefit as a result.
‘Weblicon with its innovations and cooperation is a good example for the way in which our strategy of investing into future industries, as for instance the mobile Internet, is bearing good fruit’ said Ingeborg Neumann, Managing Partner of PEPPERMINT. Financial Partners. We have been true to our shareholding principle - venture capital plus partnership – also with the Weblicon investment. And this has proven successful – as one can see.’
A recent example is the cooperation with the BTO24 online travel agency. Shifts of appointments usually give rise to nervous and hectic activity in the secretariats of companies but this is something that can be handled in a simpler and more relaxed manner today. Weblicon Board Member Carsten Brinkschulte explained, ‘The rescheduled appointment is entered into the Organizer by the client and our software will take care of the rest.’ By the way, the software can be managed through various access possibilities such as WAP and the Internet and is independent of the booking systems of the respective operators.
For BTO24, this means: The client just enters the new arrangement and the already booked flight is rescheduled automatically, ie he is offered a suitable flight at another time. The booking system will take into consideration both the travelling time, the best route to the destination as well as any subsequent appointments, which might require re-scheduling. The main argument in favour of this system for BTO Managing Director Stephan Kowalski is, ‘The combination of the two products for solving scheduling problems efficiently and quickly makes it attractive for the clients.’
The cooperation partners agree also on the benefit for the clients: The use of the Online Organizer of weblicon saves time and cost for every business traveller and alleviates the burden on the secretarial staff of a company. Advantages arise also from the simple handling to support the service. The weblicon Online Organizer takes care of appointments and addresses, e-mail and SMS information and is adapted seamlessly to the ‘look and feel’ of the respective company.
Company brief:
weblicon technologies AG – founded by today’s managing directors Carsten Brinkschulte and Peter Haas – develop and license web-based applications (Weblications) for portals, ISPs, ASPs and telcos. These personal-information-management products are integrated seamlessly into existing networks of servers, applications and databases. The Online Organizer is one of the most successful products and is being used, for instance, by E-Plus and the Dutch KPN Mobile.
The Hamburg Business Traveller Organizer GmbH, BTO24, for short was set up by Stephan Kowalski in the summer of 2000. The clients of the innovative online travel agency are, above all, free-lancers and small and medium-sized companies.
PEPPERMINT. Financial Partners is a shareholding company with its seat in Berlin, which emerged from the Schröder + Partner Management KG, founded in 1993. They were involved in restructuring former East German companies. Following a successful portfolio management, five industrial companies from the textile and furniture industry were taken over in 1997 and developed into successful niche players. Comprising some 800 employees, the industrial portfolio achieved a turnover of around Euro 100 million in the year 2000. In order to introduce the successful corporate know-how of the Old Economy also into the New Economy, PEPPERMINT. has invested venture capital into young, innovative companies from the fields of information and communication, life sciences & nano-technology and automation & energy through their PEPPERMINT.VC-Fonds. The fund has Euro 25 million at its disposal. The other partners besides PEPPERMINT. are Dresdner Kleinwort Capital (40 percent) and Stefan Quandt (20 percent). Up until today, PEPPERMINT. Financial Partners has furnished seven start-ups with venture capital, including Weblicon Technologies AG (Berlin). Ingeborg Neumann is the Managing Partner of PEPPERMINT.
For further information:
PEPPERMINT. Financial Partners. Nicole B. Meissner
Corporate Communication Phone: +49 (0)30-20 94 57 41
Friedrichstr. 70/ Quartier 205 Fax: +49 (0) 30-20 94 90 41
D-10117 Berlin e-mail: n.meissner@peppermint-vc.de
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