Yahoo!, the Online Guide for the Internet, Obtains Financing from Sequoia Capital and Celebrates its One-Year Anniversary

Founders plan to run Yahoo, Inc. full-time - Yahoo will stay free for users

San Jose, CA -- April 10, 1995 -- The creators of Yahoo, the popular online guide for the Internet, announced today that they plan to take a leave of absence from Stanford University, in order to run Yahoo full-time. With first round financing from premier venture capital fund, Sequoia Capital (backers of such Silicon Valley successes as Apple Computer, Cisco Systems, Global Village Communications and Electronic Arts), Jerry Yang and David Filo intend to devote themselves to making Yahoo even more useful and fun.

The irreverent and whimsical Yahoo guide started in April 1994 when Filo and Yang, both Ph.D. students in Stanford University's Electrical Engineering program, began to catalog interesting sites on the Internet's World Wide Web. The number of users connected to the World Wide Web, the fastest growing part of the Internet, has grown from one million in 1993 to almost four million in 1994. By the end of the decade, projections show that almost half of all Internet users, over 75 million people, will be connected to the World Wide Web. While currently focused on allowing people to easily navigate the riches of the World Wide Web, Yahoo, Inc., intends to serve the entire Internet community.

Yahoo, in just a year, and purely by word of mouth, is used by over 200,000 people per day, responsible for some 10 million accesses a week. Yahoo although already comprehensive, is updated with approximately 150 new sites every day.

According to co-founder and chief Yahoo, Jerry Yang, "As Yahoo grew from a labor of love that we worked on in our spare time, to one of the most popular online guides for the Internet, we realized that we needed additional resources in order to improve and maintain Yahoo. Wanting to maintain our independence, we approached a number of venture companies for financing. We chose Sequoia, not only because of their great reputation and track record, but also due to the support for Yahoo by Sequoia general partner, Michael Moritz. Mike supports our vision, which is to make Yahoo commercially viable, yet keeping alive the spirit that makes Yahoo so popular. We will keep Yahoo free for the end-user, while continuing to add enhancements as well as maintaining our idiosyncratic point-of-view."

"The power of the Internet is that anyone can be a publisher," noted co-founder and chief Yahoo, David Filo. "We're part of a shift that's happening where services that began as a hobby on the Internet are becoming businesses. As the Internet evolves into the information resource for the world, we intend to maintain Yahoo as the best online directory available. With this funding from Sequoia, we'll be able to focus on building an architecture that can support the increased amount of traffic we anticipate, as well as improving Yahoo's interface, features and functionality."

"Our attraction to Yahoo," explained Michael Moritz, general partner of Sequoia Capital, "was not only the vision of the founders, but its impressive success which happened seemingly overnight. We support David and Jerry's commitment to keeping Yahoo free for users, and expect that gradually Yahoo will integrate some kind of sponsorship or advertising program. However that happens, it will be in keeping with the vision and spirit of the founders, which is based on respect for the Internet community and its diverse needs."

Yahoo, the online guide for the Internet, has simplified life for hundreds of thousands of Internet users. Yahoo (Yet Another Hierarchically Officious Oracle), can be reached directly or indirectly by all of the popular Internet browsers (http://www.yahoo.com). Two ways to use Yahoo include keyword searches or a simple and intuitive menu. Yahoo lets users reach areas of interest as quickly as possible or helps them encounter new resources and information. Yahoo's style leads users to more specific levels of topics and eventually to the needle in the information haystack.

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