Leading Digital Investors Back New Model for Privacy and Consumer Data Ownership

Washington, D.C., January 6, 2011 - Personal (www.personal.com), an online and mobile service that allows individuals to organize, control and directly benefit from their digital data, announced today that it has closed $7.6 million in Series A round financing, co-led by Grotech Ventures and Steve Case's Revolution LLC. The round also includes funding from media investment bank Allen & Company and Eric Semler of TCS Capital Management. Personal will use this financing to expand its testing and introduce the service to consumers in early 2011.

Personal was founded in 2009 by the same management team that built The Map Network, a service for businesses to manage their own location content and map data, acquired by Nokia subsidiary NAVTEQ in 2006. Personal aims to transform the current practice of companies tracking, compiling and selling digital information without the consumer's consent. The Personal team is dedicated to the idea that people - not companies - should have the right to take charge of and get value from their own information.

"People have been told they must accept online tracking as a tradeoff for keeping their favorite websites and mobile apps free, but they are surprised at how invasive this tracking has become and just how valuable their data is to these companies and advertisers," said Shane Green, president and CEO of Personal. "We aim to fundamentally turn the tables to empower consumers to become gatekeepers of their information and, if they choose, be rewarded for granting access to it, even anonymously."

Don Rainey, general partner at Grotech Ventures, adds, "Personal is building a transparent, permission-based model that is a win for consumers concerned about privacy and a win for their preferred sites and brands, which can now get direct access to far richer, more accurate data if they agree to play by a fair set of rules."

The service is currently in beta testing and available by invitation-only. For more information or to sign up to receive an invitation to join, visit www.personal.com.

About Personal

Personal is an online and mobile service that allows individuals to organize, control and benefit from their digital data. Personal was founded in 2009 with the vision that people - not companies - should have the right to take charge of and be rewarded for granting safe access to their online information. The service is currently in beta and available by invitation-only. For more information, visit www.personal.com and follow on Twitter @personal.

Media Contact: Karen Sippel | 202.559.7318 | karen@mixcomms.com