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Internet's leader in marketing digital images on the Web will use cash to
fuel aggressive Web business growth and acquisition drive

Index Stock Photography, Inc., a leading supplier of stock photography and a pioneer in Web-based sales of still images via their Photos To Go Web site, today announced the completion of an $18.6 million equity investment round. SCP Private Equity Partners, L.P., a Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE: SFE) - related private equity investment fund, led the investment round with participation from other private investors.

According to Index Stock Photography CEO Bahar Gidwani, the capital infusion will unleash an aggressive drive to expand both its traditional stock photography business and its rapidly-growing Web-based image commerce. "The investment will enable Index to become the top name in the image distribution business," said Gidwani. "To date, our growth has been driven by the success of our TeleFocus image browser used by traditional photo customers, as well as our Web-based Photos To Go (http://www.photostogo.com) business. Now, we can accelerate our growth and expand our market through affiliations with partners as well as carefully selected acquisitions."

"We have been extremely impressed by the Index Stock Photography management team, its commercial success to date, and its growth potential and strategy," commented Samuel Plum, a managing general partner of SCP. "Index Stock Photography has become the leader in marketing digital images on the Web, and we feel that lead can be expanded into new areas, driving growth in the broader category of Web-based content distribution."

Mr. Plum is one of three SCP executives who will join the Index Stock Board of Directors, bringing the total number of Directors to eight.

Index Stock Photography is one of the first stock photography services to distribute electronic photographic images directly to consumers via on-line services. Revenues for Photos To Go have increased by more than 30 percent per month since its launch last year, driven by growing demand among small and home-based business customers, innovative pricing, and affiliations with software companies, Web search engines, and content providers. Photos To Go currently has affiliations with Brøderbund, EarthLink, Ask Jeeves, and many others.

"We are already the market leader for stock images on the Internet and are moving rapidly to expand that market and to establish ourselves as the leading Internet distributor of video, film and sound clips as well as illustrations, animated GIFs, and software that supports their use," comments Gidwani. "We already have six times more material on-line than our closest competition. We believe there will be significant developments in the next few months and that 1998 will be a very good year for Index Stock Photography."

About SCP Private Equity Partners,
L.P. SCP Private Equity Partners, L.P. is an equity and equity-related investment fund formed by Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., Winston J. Churchill and Samuel A. Plum to make private equity investments in post-venture stage companies covering a broad range of industries. The fund has $265 million under management.

About Index Stock Photography, Inc.
New York-based Index Stock Photography, Inc., is a leading stock photo agency representing more than 375 professional photographers. Index has offices in New York and Los Angeles and agents in 40 countries. With more than one million photos in its library, it is a respected source of high-quality images for advertisers, graphic designers, publishers, and multimedia producers. In 1991, Index began storing and distributing images electronically. For more information, visit its Web sites at www.indexstock.com and www.photostogo.com.

Note: Mr. Gidwani will be addressing the "Alley To The Valley" conference at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco on Tuesday, March 17, at 10:00 am. Media wishing to discuss this announcement with Mr. Gidwani can contact David Parmet at (212) 780-1900.