Social Networking Feature Offers New Insight Into Government
Buyers’ Backgrounds

Onvia Gives Suppliers and Government Buyers Something to Talk About

SEATTLE, Nov 30, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ — Onvia (Nasdaq: ONVI) today announced the addition of a new social networking feature through Onvia Business Builder. An embedded Personnel History Link provides users with access to social networking information so they can gain insight about government contacts within their agencies of interest. The social networking information includes government contract work history, education, current position and other business affiliations, leading to social networking opportunities and added insight about how to reach out to potential customers. Based on the networking concept that people can be connected through common associates and associations, via degrees of separation between contacts, the Personnel History Link strengthens Onvia Business Builder’s ability to provide comprehensive government business intelligence and data that surrounds public sector business opportunities.

“We believe a successful sales and marketing strategy relies on having relevant business personnel information available anytime, anywhere. Our users already rely on us for targeted government business intelligence, including business opportunities, multi-faceted research and project histories,” said Mike Pickett, CEO of Onvia. “It’s only natural that we now provide even more contact details to help them win contracts in the government marketplace. Companies want to know something about their prospective clients before contacting them, and our new social networking feature provides just that kind of valuable data to give our users an extra edge in connecting with government buyers.”

While other features of Onvia Business Builder provide information about whom to call regarding sales opportunities, the social networking, or Personnel History Link, adds specific information about who these people are. Currently, companies rely on limited online resources and publications as well as social networking to build these government connections. The Personnel History Link transforms a government contact name on a computer screen to a person with an employment history, association memberships, and hobbies, thus allowing users to establish a quicker, more strategic business rapport with prospective clients.

In order to add this social networking enhancement to Onvia Business Builder, Onvia partnered with ZoomInfo, a unique summarization search engine that finds, understands and extracts the latest online information about people and companies. ZoomInfo’s patented search technology continually scans millions of Web sites, press releases, electronic news services, SEC filings and other online sources, resulting in concise summaries of more than 27 million people and two million companies.

Onvia Business Builder is a government business intelligence product that enables companies of all sizes to compete more effectively in the fast-growing government procurement marketplace. Onvia Business Builder provides access to detailed information on over 2.3 million government contracting related opportunities from across 65,400 government agencies representing 194,000 buyers and 178,000 government contractors nationwide. The product takes full advantage of Onvia’s massive proprietary database–historical information gathered from local, state and federal government agencies and education purchasing entities over the last seven years–to help businesses evaluate and respond to new bid requests and RFPs, and win more government contracts.

Onvia Business Builder expands upon Onvia’s existing product, the successful Onvia Guide. The Guide is a daily bulletin delivered to over 26,000 customers, providing industry- and location-specific bid notices, requests for proposals and contracting opportunities. While the Guide presents government sales opportunities (sorted by category and relevancy), Onvia Business Builder provides new dimensions of information on each sales opportunity from both historical and real-time perspectives, including project history, agency research, buyer research and competitive intelligence.

The government business intelligence available through Onvia Business Builder is derived from Onvia’s deep understanding of the procurement process, coupled with the application of innovative data collection and content management technology. Onvia covers opportunities in industries such as architecture, engineering, construction and information technology, among others.

Product Purchasing Information

To learn more about purchasing Onvia Business Builder, or to participate in a product demonstration, please visit Onvia online at http://www.onvia.com/pr.rsp or call 1-800-483-6025.

About Onvia

Onvia (Nasdaq: ONVI) helps business-to-government (B2G) companies achieve a competitive advantage by delivering timely and actionable government procurement opportunities and information. More than 26,000 subscribers and enterprise licensees across the United States rely on Onvia as a comprehensive resource for tailored, industry-specific information needed to make intelligent sales decisions. Onvia offers unparalleled coverage of 65,400 federal, state, and local purchasing entities and across such markets as architecture, engineering, IT/telecom, consulting services, operations and maintenance, office equipment, transportation, and medical equipment. In 2004, Onvia published 641,724 advance notices, bids, quotes, RFPs, and award notifications. Onvia was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

Securities Safe Harbor

This release may contain, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management’s current expectations or beliefs, and involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the features of Onvia’s new product, expected capabilities of the new product features, the business-to-government marketplace, the value of sales intelligence to companies doing business with government agencies, and subscriber information. Onvia’s actual results could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements: Onvia’s products fail to meet their expected capabilities; Onvia’s technology fails to keep up with the growing demands of businesses in the government market; competitors develop similar technologies and products; Onvia’s relationship with ZoomInfo may deteriorate; and Onvia has overestimated the value of sales intelligence to companies doing business with government agencies.

For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements, please refer to Onvia’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) including Onvia’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004, Onvia’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter of 2005, and Onvia’s Proxy Statement filed with the SEC on April 8, 2005.

SOURCE Onvia
CONTACT: Cameron Way
(206) 373-9034
investorrelations@onvia.com

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