Qualcomm announces winner of QPrize

Qualcomm Ventures on Monday named Enterproid as the grand prize winner for its QPrize competition, which provides seed funding to start up wireless companies in six regions worldwide.
Enterproid makes an application that allows owners of smart phones to use them for both work-related uses and personal uses with security that doesn’t compromise the information technology infrastructure of their employer. The company, based in New York, does this by dividing the smart phone into a work mode and personal mode.
Qualcomm Ventures announced the winner at the DEMO Spring technology trade show in Palm Desert. Enterproid will get $250,000. Five other regional winners will receive $100,000 each. They are: Cambridge Temperature Concepts of Europe, which developed a fertility monitor application;, Corrigon of Israel, which makes a mobile shopping application; Ji Ke of China, which developed a mobile apps store platform; Kiwiple of South Korea, which has an augmented reality social networking application; and Reverie Language Technologies of India, which eliminates language barriers for businesses on mobile devices.
Nagraj Kashyap, vice president of Qualcomm Ventures, said the San Diego wireless giant funded 13 start up companies in 2010, not counting the QPrize winners. That’s a record number for a single year for the fund, which was started in 2000 with $500 million.
While many of Qualcomm Ventures recent investments have been software related, Kashyap said the fund is not solely focused on mobile software firms. When it does invest in software firms, Qualcomm Ventures typically is trying to grow the market for data use on mobile phones, which is where Qualcomm’s technology shines.
Qualcomm remains committed to investing in hardware, semiconductor and emerging technology start ups, he said.