NEW YORK, Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Horizon Wimba, the leading provider of collaborative software to the online education market, announced today that it has closed a $10 million equity financing. The financing was led by Tudor Ventures, the private equity arm of Tudor Investment Corporation, with the participation of existing investors, including The Argentum Group, First Analysis Corporation, and Gefinor Ventures. Horizon Wimba will use the funds to accelerate product development and its sales and marketing efforts.

During the past six months, Horizon Wimba has achieved significant milestones including:

-- Obtaining esteemed customers such as UMassOnline, San Diego State University, Drexel e-Learning, and New York University in the United States, and Keele University and Oxford Brookes University in Europe -- Unveiling Pronto, its free, school-centric instant messaging and voice chat tool which integrates with course management systems such as Blackboard -- Introducing the Wimba Podcaster, a tool which makes it easy for instructors to add audio files to their online courses to which students can then subscribe as podcasts

"We now have the resources to accelerate the development of new products and improve our existing ones in order to give our customers across the globe the best collaborative tools for online teaching and learning," said Tommaso Trionfi, CEO of Horizon Wimba. "Our customers' students come first and we'll continue to invest our time and energy into ensuring that they're equipped with the tools to receive the best education possible. Now, with the addition of Tudor Ventures to our existing investor group, coupled with the recent addition of Carol Vallone, former CEO of WebCT, to our Board, we believe we are well-equipped to provide superior service to our customers while continuing to play a leading role in the education field."

"Our investment in Horizon Wimba is testimony to the growth opportunities in the online education industry and the prominent role Horizon Wimba plays within it," said Carmen Scarpa, Managing Director of Tudor Investment Corporation. "Based on its robust products and strong relationships with its customers worldwide, we believe that Horizon Wimba has cultivated a prominent name within education and we look forward to watching it continue to flourish."

About Horizon Wimba

Horizon Wimba develops collaborative software applications addressing the diverse needs of the emerging online education market. Its software enables institutions to take advantage of the multitude of advances in the Internet and Internet-based technologies while also enhancing their course management systems. The Company's virtual classroom solution enables educators to teach and meet live online; its vocal collaboration technologies add oral content directly into course content, web pages and assessments; its content authoring software allows users to quickly and easily convert Microsoft Word documents into web pages; and its test-generation and homework management tools allow faculty to create test, quiz, and exam questions. With simplicity and power, Horizon Wimba adds new dimensions to online, accessible education, enriching the learning experience for both students and instructors.

About Tudor

Tudor Ventures is the venture capital and private equity arm of Tudor Investment Corporation, an internationally recognized, diversified investment management firm with total assets under management in excess of $14.7 billion. Since the early 1990s, Tudor and its principals have invested in over 65 companies, with a strong record of investment success, and currently manage over $500 million in private equity investments.

Press contact: Matt Wasowski 212.813.3886 http://www.horizonwimba.com/

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CONTACT: Matt Wasowski, Horizon Wimba, +1-212-813-3886

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