SAN MATEO, California, October 13 /PRNewswire/ --

- Technology Leader Mines Hard-to-Find Data from the Web

FirstRain(R), the leading provider of search-driven research, today
announced the launch of its UK operations. This milestone makes an innovative
fundamental data stream available to U.K. firms for the first time.

"FirstRain feeds us fundamental information on industries and companies
that is not generally available on sell-side research," said Luis Benoliel,
analyst at First State Investments. "This helps us reduce the risk of missing
important industry data points."

FirstRain clients include large global firms, investment managers and
hedge funds, including Pioneer Investments, The TCW Group, Inc.,
Institutional Investor, JVC, Motorola, SAP and more than 100 other firms who
insist on confidentiality to maintain their competitive advantage from using
FirstRain.

"The Web has grown into the richest but most chaotic business dataset in
the world. As a result, our users can quickly identify data points, trends
and questions that impact their business decisions," said Penny Herscher,
President and CEO of FirstRain. "The market now sees the imperative to use
the breadth and depth of information the Web offers -- our technology now
makes this systematic and repeatable."

Investment and corporate professionals select FirstRain for:

-- Highly efficient and personalized access to hard-to-find information
       from sources like blogs, global and local news; and industry and 
       professional publications

    -- Revealing and non-conventional analytics about management, including
       unannounced turnover and communication patterns

    -- Comprehensive visibility into data on quiet, hard-to-research,
       mid-cap, small-cap and private companies

    -- Risk mitigation by systematically ensuring no Web information relevant
       to the company is missed each day

    -- Daily reports of critical information about industries, corporate
       governance issues and competitive trends retrieved from widely 
       dispersed data sources on the Web

Firms interested in the service may inquire by phone at +0-808-101-3444,
or by email at sales@firstrain.com

About FirstRain

As the leader in search-driven research, FirstRain provides global firms
with a competitive advantage, revealing information and trends from the web
that they would not otherwise see. FirstRain changes the rules of research by
applying state-of-the-art extraction and pattern detection technology to the
web. FirstRain is a privately held company with more than 150 employees,
headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., with additional offices in New York, NY
and Gurgaon, India. Contact FirstRain at http://www.firstrain.com. Visit CEO
Penny Herscher's blog, Market Mine, at http://pennyherscher.blogspot.com.

Web site: http://www.firstrain.com