PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 2, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sitoa Global Inc. (OTCQB:STOA) (the "Company"), an e-commerce facilitator, announced today that it has received a Letter of Commitment for up to US$10.8 million from AIV Ltd. ("AIV"), a private funding group, to fund its business plan through a strategic partnership. The Company expects to use the funds to further expand into emerging markets. 

The Letter of Commitment intends to provide up to $10.8 million in funding for the Company in the form of a four-year loan bearing five-percent (5%) interest. The loan will be secured by the joint intellectual property of the Company, specific to the "Focused Social Marketplace" platforms to be built and modified for non-U.S. countries where Sitoa Global and AIV will expand. 

Sitoa Global and AIV will collaborate based on a revenue share and licensing model and intend to partner or create joint ventures with large enterprise Software as a Service ("SaaS") companies as its business model.

For the first marketplace, AIV will work with Sitoa Global to develop and host a Focused Social Marketplace providing China based internet users with practical and credible health information content and online tools for managing health, similar to the U.S. based internet site, WebMD. AIV and Sitoa Global are targeting a total of ten Focused Social Marketplaces in emerging markets by 2014.

The China market is highly fragmented in terms of destination sites for practical health information and to date, there is no clear leader. AIV intends to bring the wealth of knowledge and experience from its team of professionals to this endeavor.

Cal Lai, the Company's President and CEO, commented, "We are extremely pleased to be partnering with AIV and their team and believe in the market potential of the opportunity. We believe that the ability to have funding to expand our Focused Social Marketplace into emerging markets will help us overcome many challenges and will also enable us to further enhance our product and service offering."

About Sitoa Global Inc.

Sitoa Global provides an easy-to-use and comprehensive platform, the "Focused Social Marketplace" that enables online retailers to deploy a social marketplace e-commerce site. Sitoa's platform allows building marketplaces for online sellers with focused social customer networks to expand their sales channels without the risks of focus dilution, and increased capital and operating costs. Sitoa shares in revenues generated by the site in addition to charging integration and hosting fees. Additional information about Sitoa may be found on its website, http://www.sitoaglobal.com. 

Safe Harbor Statement

This release contains certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements" including statements regarding: the continued growth of the e-commerce and emerging market segments and the ability of the Company to continue its expansion into those segments; the ability of the Company to receive funding from AIV and to use the proceeds to expand its business; the ability of the Company to successfully execute its business plan; the business strategy, plans, and objectives of the Company; and any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects" or similar expressions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume any duty to update these forward-looking statements.