Strategic Acquisition and Key New Hires Position the Company for Continued Growth and Customer Expansion in the European Market

Emeryville, Calif. and London, UK – May 13, 2009 – Lyris, Inc., the online marketing expert, today announced it has acquired long-time partner Facultas, a full-service email marketing agency based in the UK. With the acquisition, Lyris significantly expands its global footprint and ability to extend full-service offerings to multinational customers around the globe.

To support the expansion, Lyris will be opening a new office in central London. Donna McNicholas, who was recently named the Lyris UK sales director, will lead the London sales team. Andrew Robinson, former managing director and owner of Facultas, will assume the position of Lyris’ director of international professional services. Lyris’ global expansion is in direct response to marketers’ demand for easy-to-use solutions that allow them to successfully create, manage and measure email, social and mobile campaigns all with the technology and services of one company.

“We have seen tremendous momentum for our Lyris HQ integrated marketing suite in the US and recognise a large opportunity in the European market for a SaaS-based, online marketing solution,” said Luis Rivera, CEO, Lyris. “The services expertise of the Facultas team combined with new executive talent in the UK provides Lyris with a strong presence in Europe and will afford extended resources and market knowledge to new and existing Lyris customers worldwide.”

Email marketing continues to see strong growth in the European region. Rebecca Jennings, a principal analyst for Forrester Research, projects in a report that “the European email market will grow by 12 percent per annum” through 2012. Additionally, Jennings finds that “marketers will use more sophisticated targeting, messaging and analytics to engage the critical consumer.” [1]

The Facultas team brings many years of experience in managing the email and online marketing spectrum, from strategy to technology integration through to full-service online marketing campaigns. As a leading Lyris reseller in Europe since 2004, many of Facultas’ current customers already standardise on Lyris email marketing solutions, such as British Museum, Hand Picked Hotels and Kitbag.com. They will continue to be fully supported and have the added benefit of leveraging the extended reach and resources of the growing Lyris organisation.

“The integrated technology and industry know-how of the combined Lyris and Facultas team is unmatched in the UK market,” said Andrew Robinson. “Facultas customers can now reap the many value-add benefits that come from being serviced by a global organisation and take advantage of the vast array of technology, services and industry expertise Lyris has to offer.”