VIENNA, Va., Sept. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Convera Corporation (Nasdaq: CNVR) -- www.convera.com -- a leading provider of vertical search services for publishers, today announced financial results for the three-month period ended July 31, 2008.

Revenue from continuing operations for the second quarter of fiscal 2009 increased to $469,000 or 84% over the $255,000 in revenue recorded in the comparable period of last year and increased $ 67,000 or 17% over the $402,000 of revenue recognized in first quarter ended April 30, 2008.

As of July 31, 2008, a total of 46 Excalibur supported vertical search sites from 26 different publishers have been commercially launched. At January 31, 2008, 39 vertical search sites from 24 publishers had been commercially launched. Search traffic activity from the Excalibur supported vertical sites continued to grow, increasing 76% from 17.5 million searches in the first quarter to over 30.8 million searches in the second quarter ended July 31, 2008.

As of today, a total of 81 Excalibur supported vertical search sites are under contract with customers, 47 of these sites have been commercially launched and 34 of these sites are in development. These contracted sites represent publications in over 24 major vertical industries.

Convera is presently providing vertical search services to 31 different trade publishers. Patrick Condo, President and CEO of Convera, stated, 'Our goal is to build the largest professional search network and the first half results are indicative of the progress we are making. We expect to continue to add customers, search sites and new vertical industries in the second half of this year to our existing portfolio, deepening our penetration of the business to business market.'

The loss from continuing operations for the three-month period ended July 31, 2008, was $3.6 million, or $0.07 per share, (which includes $1.1 million in depreciation and stock compensation expenses which are non cash expenses and other income of $0.7 million that was previously recorded as deferred revenue) compared to a loss from continuing operations of $6.0 million, or $0.11 per share, (which includes $0.6 million in depreciation and stock compensation which are non cash expenses) for the comparable year-ago period and a loss from continuing operations for the three months ended April 30, 2008 of $5.4 million (which includes $1.6 million in depreciation and stock compensation which are non cash expenses).

The decreased loss reflects a reduction in staffing levels and Convera's efforts to discontinue non-strategic activities stemming from cost streamlining actions taken during fiscal 2008. Convera expects to continue to receive benefits from these actions in the coming quarters as a result of continued alignment of resources to pursue the on-line publishing and media marketplace.

Net loss for the three months ended July 31, 2008 was $3.6 million or $0.07 per share, which compares to a net loss of $6.2 million or $0.12 per share, for the comparable period of the prior year and a net loss of $5.4 million or $0.10 per share for the three months ended April 30, 2008.

Cash and investments as of July 31, 2008, totaled $27.4 million and does not include the $4.0 million held in escrow from the sale of the RetrievalWare enterprise search business.