LONDON -- GMT Communications Partners (“GMT”), Europe’s leading private equity investor in the communications sector, today announces that it is leading a £6m investment round into XchangePoint Europe (“XPE”) to further support its U.K. and German operations and to fund its expansion into other European countries. PolyTechnos Funds (“PolyTechnos”), advised by PolyTechnos Venture-Partners, a leading Munich based technology venture capital company, is joining GMT in this investment round. This represents GMT’s second commitment to XPE, having first led a funding round in February 2001.

As part of the expansion plans, XPE (www.xchangepoint.net) has also appointed a new CEO, Richard Almeida, who is a serial IT entrepreneur and has successfully worked with GMT in another of its portfolio companies from a predecessor fund, Internet Network Services (“INS”). Tim Challenor and Stephen Coles, also members of the INS team, are joining XPE as Head of Marketing/Product Development and as full time CFO.

XPE is Europe’s first neutral commercial provider of Internet peering and interconnect services. Peering points are the major traffic intersections on the Internet where ISP backbone providers, content providers and large Internet users exchange data. Founded in 2000, XPE already has operations in London and Hamburg and has over 100 customers which include all the major European Telco's as well as tier one carriers, a range of large and small ISP's and various corporates.

XchangePoint Holdings Ltd.