Web 2.0 Companies in Online Social Networking Space receive HTGC funding

\"Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTGC), a leading specialty finance company providing growth capital to venture capital and private equity backed technology and life science companies, today announced that it has provided venture leasing financing to two early stage companies.
On March 30, 2007, Hercules provided $1 million of equipment based financing to Wallop, Inc., a San Francisco-based internet social networking company that started as a Microsoft research project. In addition, on March 15, 2007, Hercules provided a growth loan of $1 million to an undisclosed company based in Los Angeles in the multimedia networking community for music and pop culture.
“Online social networking sites have become immensely popular over the past few years,” said Steve Kuo, principal at Hercules, who added that the two financings marked Hercules’ initial transactions in the internet social networking space. “At Hercules, we believe the sector has great potential for continued growth. Wallop’s attractive business model and growth potential positioned the company well for our venture leasing investment.”
Wallop, which was spun out of Microsoft Research and Microsoft IP Ventures, is led by experienced entrepreneur and Chief Executive Officer Karl Jacob and is backed by venture capital firms Norwest Venture Partners, Bay Partners, Consor Capital and an equity stake from Microsoft. The company is an online social networking community that enables users to freely express themselves and is dedicated to finding solutions to the limitations of other social networking sites. "