Qualcomm Announces Finalists in Second Annual QPrize Venture Investment Competition
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Six Regional Companies Each Earn US$100,000 in Early-stage Funding and Advance to Final Round of Competition at DEMO Spring 2011
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 31, 2011 - Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM) today revealed the six regional finalists for its Qualcomm Ventures' QPrize(TM) venture investment competition. The six companies representing China, Europe, India, Israel, Korea and North America prevailed in a series of regional competitions and will each receive US$100,000 (euro 100,000 in Europe) in venture financing to grow their businesses. As finalists, the companies will proceed to the final round of competition at DEMO Spring 2011 to compete for the Grand Prize of an additional US$150,000 in venture financing. The winner will also receive time on stage at DEMO to pitch their company's product or service to the attendees. DEMO Spring 2011 takes place February 27-March 1 at the JW Marriott in Palm Desert, Calif.
In regional competitions, business plans submitted by entrant companies were evaluated based on financial viability, product innovation and the strength of management teams. Independent venture capitalists, QPrize sponsors and Qualcomm Ventures investment managers worked together to form the diverse judging panels responsible for reviewing entries and selecting the six regional finalists.
"The future of our industry relies on entrepreneurs to take risks and do what others have not done before to turn innovative ideas into reality," said Nagraj Kashyap, vice president of Qualcomm Ventures. "This year, we expanded QPrize from four to six regions through the addition of Israel and Korea, and the level of creativity and vision from the finalists really exceeded our expectations. Congratulations to these companies on their impressive accomplishments in the competition."
o China:
Ji Ke
Ji Ke operates a Chinese mobile independent app store that
generated $4 million in revenue and a $440,000 profit in
2009. The company has more than 33,000 mobile games,
15,000 handset applications and an archive of 56,000
books, 9,400 video clips and entertainment features, plus
tens of thousands of wallpapers, themes and ringtones.
159.com is the company's branded website that operates as
a social networking service for consumers looking for
entertainment. www.159.com
o Europe:
Cambridge Temperature Concepts
Cambridge Temperature Concepts (CTC) is a start-up company
founded in 2006 by a group of scientists from the
University of Cambridge. The team at CTC has developed its
first product, the DuoFertility fertility monitor, in
order to help couples start their families. The company's
aim is to change the way temperature is monitored, making
it more convenient, more reliable and more accurate. www.temperatureconcepts.com
o India:
Reverie Technologies
Founded in 2006, Reverie Technologies is a solution
provider in the B2B domain. A 3-Screen technology company
with a focus on the PC (Internet), mobile and TV
platforms, Reverie Technologies aims to provide businesses
with a range of products and solutions that are simple,
necessary, and effective in seamlessly reaching the masses
irrespective of the language of communication. Our
objective is simple: leverage advanced technologies to
enable businesses to reach everyone without any barriers
to communication. Reverie's proprietary multi-lingual
design for text entry on mobile handsets is proven to be
40-200 percent faster than the other popular keypads
available in the industry. The keypad can be a physical or
a virtual one depending on the need. www.reverie.co.in
o Israel:
Corrigon
Corrigon provides solutions for visual shopping based on
its proprietary object recognition technology. The
company is developing a mobile application that identifies
products and displays relevant shopping information.
Corrigon's solution is based on an innovative, patent-
pending technology that can process massive amounts of
images in order to dynamically learn the unique features
of each object it finds. www.corrigon.com
o Korea:
Kiwiple
Kiwiple is a location-based information and social
networking service company. The idea is that any object
can be a social link between people, whereas other social
media services use human networking as social link. The
augmented reality based interface in Kiwiple's
application, OVJET, is intuitive and improves the accuracy
of sensor -based AR by using lay racing on GIS
information. OVJET is currently loaded on about 3 million
Android phones in Korea and the company recently launched
an iOS version. www.kiwiple.com
o North America:
Enterproid
Enterproid is a startup focused on helping business open up
a broader, more functional set of mobile devices to their
employees without sacrificing enterprise-grade security
and control. The company's core product combines a cloud-
based management engine with deep on-device technology
that enables professionals to consolidate their work and
personal lives onto a single device. www.enterproid.com
The second annual Qualcomm Ventures QPrize competition provides US$750,000 in total seed funding for the entrepreneurs of today as they work to bring their ideas to market, this is an increase of $200,000 from 2010. Additional details on regional finalists and the Grand Prize event are available at qprize.com.
About Qualcomm Ventures
Qualcomm Ventures, the venture investment group of Qualcomm Incorporated, was launched in the United States in November 2000 with an initial US$500 million allocation. Qualcomm Ventures' aim is to support Qualcomm's mission of enabling and fostering 3G and wireless Internet markets through investments in privately owned startup ventures. These investments include companies focusing on wireless communication technologies and products serving consumer, enterprise and vertical markets worldwide. For more information, please visit www.qualcomm.com/ventures.
About Qualcomm
Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) a the world leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies. For 25 years, Qualcomm ideas and inventions have driven the evolution of wireless communications, connecting people more closely to information, entertainment and each other. Today, Qualcomm technologies are powering the convergence of mobile communications and consumer electronics, making wireless devices and services more personal, affordable and accessible to people everywhere. For more information, please visit Qualcomm around the Web: www.qualcomm.com
Qualcomm Contacts:
Emily Kilpatrick,
Corporate Communications
Phone: 1-858-845-5959
Email: corpcomm@qualcomm.com
SOURCE Qualcomm Incorporated
Web Site: www.enterproid.com
