Cornice Secures $97 Million in Venture Funding

LONGMONT, Colo., December 14, 2005 — Cornice Inc., an innovator in consumer storage solutions — today announced it has secured $97 million in venture debt and equity financing. The equity round includes the Company’s major previous investors – VantagePoint Venture Partners, BlueRun Ventures and BA Venture Partners – and brings on a new lead investor, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (the “Caisse”). Simultaneously with the close of the equity financing, the Company entered into a new lending relationship with Hercules Technology Growth Capital; the firm supplemented Cornice with structured mezzanine debt capital.

The new financing will be used to support the development and manufacturing initiatives related to the Company’s micro hard drive technology, as well as expand the marketing and corporate sales groups. Cornice offers embedded one-inch storage devices for pocket-able consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, digital music players, and personal storage devices. Cornice’s storage products have been enabling small, ultra-thin, high-capacity, rugged consumer electronics products for more than two years for the world’s leading consumer electronics manufacturers.

“With the additional financing and continued interest in Cornice’s storage products from brand name consumer electronics manufacturers, we are confident that Cornice will continue to be a leading innovator and a major player in the consumer storage industry,” said Camillo Martino, president and CEO of Cornice. “This new round of funding exceeded our initial target expectations, and we are now well-poised to achieve profitability during 2006, providing a strong foundation for Cornice to achieve an IPO in the near future.”

"We believe that Cornice's innovative product offerings and unique insight into the consumer electronics market create an incredibly compelling formula for success," stated Sylvain Gareau, Caisse’s Vice-President, Venture Capital. "This storage solution will cater exclusively to the demand of the consumer electronic devices market.”

About the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is a financial institution that manages funds primarily for public and private pension and insurance plans. As at December 31, 2004, it held CA$102.4 billion of net assets. The Caisse invests in the main financial markets as well as in private equity and real estate. The institution partners with dynamic companies in various sectors, offering them a full range of debt and equity financing products. As at December 31, 2004, the private equity portfolios held more than 600 investments in funds and companies, for CA$10.2 billion of net assets. For more information: www.lacaisse.com.

About Cornice
Cornice Inc. is the leading innovator in consumer storage solutions that enable a new generation of pocket-able consumer electronic devices for the world's foremost brand-name manufacturers. The one-inch Cornice storage solutions are durable, integrated personal storage that brings new levels of ruggedness and content capacity to these devices. Cornice storage is built into a wide variety of consumer products, including mobile phones, MP3 players, personal video recorders, GPS devices and portable storage products. Cornice customers consist of the world’s leading consumer electronics manufacturers. Privately held, Cornice is headquartered in Longmont, Colorado, with integration centers in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. Visit Cornice at http://www.corniceco.com/.