London – 24th November 2011: Easypress Technologies today announces that St Ives plc (“St Ives”) has made a minority investment of £1.5m in The EvolvedGroup Limited (“Evolved”), the parent company of Easypress Technologies Limited, a leading provider of eBook conversion software to the publishing industry.

The investment will enhance the Group’s ability to further develop its eBook strategy, and in turn will accelerate Evolved’s expansion, principally via investment in additional sales and marketing resource within the UK and North America. St Ives’ existing publishing solutions business, Clays, is the UK’s leading book printer producing over 160 million books a year.

The move represents another step in St Ives’s strategy to create a complementary range of publishing and marketing solutions and services, whilst reducing exposure to commoditised print markets, enabling the Group to add further value to existing and new clients.

Established in 2005, Evolved backed Easypress in the development of its Atomik easy-to-use cross-media publishing software that helps its clients to create, manage and publish content in multiple media, efficiently and profitably. A particular focus of its proprietary technology is the conversion of content into eBook and tablet formats. The business employs eleven staff, is headquartered in Guildford and has a strong client base within the publishing community.

St Ives has agreed to invest £1.5m in cash for a 15.75% equity stake in Evolved and will have a right of first refusal in the event of the sale of all or part of the remaining equity in the business. The current shareholders are the co-founders along with a number of private individuals.

“This investment will help accelerate our growth plans both here and in the USA and Canada where the eBook market is booming,” said James Macfarlane, CEO of Evolved. “The opportunity to work with St Ives again in this fast moving industry and help global publishers change the way they approach the digital book market was clearly a massive benefit for the company too.”

Following the investment, Evolved will work closely with St Ives within the UK but will continue to be managed by the existing management team from its current premises.

For further information, please visit www.easypress.com