Qualcomm Names 6 Finalists in Global QPrize Venture Financing Competition

I had to double-check after Qualcomm today announced the six regional finalists for its second annual QPrize venture investment competition. The San Diego wireless giant (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) held its inaugural QPrize event in 2009, but the logistics of running a global prize competition made it difficult to reprise the entire process in 2010.

So this is the second annual QPrize competition in three years.

In its statement today, Qualcomm says the six finalists were selected in a series of regional competitions and each will receive $100,000 (or €100,000 in Europe). Qualcomm Ventures, which oversees the QPrize, added Israel and South Korea this time, which expanded the number of regional finalists to six from the original four (North America, China, Europe, and India). The grand prize winner selected at DEMO will win an additional $150,000.

As finalists, the companies will proceed to the final round of competition, which will be held at DEMO Spring in Palm Desert, CA, from Feb. 27 to March 1. The region and finalists are:

—North America: Enterproid, a New York, NY, software startup (listed as a portfolio company at High Peaks Venture Partners) developing Android-based technology to enable professionals to consolidate their work and personal life onto a single enterprise-grade device without compromising security or functionality.

—China: Ji Ke, an independent mobile app store that offers more than 33,000 games, 15,000 handset applications, 56,000 books, and 9,400 videos. The company generated $4 million in revenue (and a $440,000 profit) in 2009.

—Europe: Cambridge Temperature Concepts, founded in 2006 by a group of Cambridge scientists, has developed a fertility monitor that uses a small sensor patch worn under the arm to monitor body temperature every second. The data is transferred wirelessly to a hand-held reader that displays easy-to-understand results, which are intended to help couples identify times when they are most likely to get pregnant.

—India: Reverie Technologies, founded in 2006, has developed technology for three screens (computer/Internet, mobile device, and TV) that is intended to provide businesses with a simple and effective way to reach mass audiences, irrespective of language.

—Israel: Corrigon uses proprietary object recognition technology in mobile applications to identify products for consumers and display relevant shopping information.

—South Korea: Kiwiple, a location-based information and social networking service company, uses an augmented reality-interface currently loaded on about 3 million Android phones in South Korea.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.