MobileBeat2009 Top Startup Competition
Matt just posted that the MobileBeat 2009 Startup Competition has extended their deadline for submissions to July 1st. I caught up with Matthaus out at Mobile 2.0 in Barcelona to chat about some of the stuff they have planned for the event. For instance they have Michael Abbott from Palm speaking. Although I’ve seen a bunch of Palm folks out at events these days, it’s the first time I’ve seen someone from their crew speaking since the Pre release. And there’ll be a bunch of folks from the funding side too : Redpoint, Qualcomm Ventures, Blackberry Partners, Kleiner Perkins iFund, T-Mobile Ventures, and others.
Lately lots of VCs have been pinging me actually trying to get a handle on the mobile market. Things have radically shifted over the last two years. The current global economic crisis, major new platforms popping up, existing entrenched players making serious drives to keep relevance, and the redistribution of power and money from a few large players out to a larger number of smaller players has made the market really difficult to decode. Meanwhile, mobile is hot and everyone sees that there’s interesting activity going on. Venture folks still have money to put into the right startups, but finding the right startups is even harder than it used to be.
It’s definitely a unique time in mobile with respect to being able to launch a disruptive startup that carves out it’s own niche in the restructured market. People are open to ideas now that would have seemed ridiculous last year. And the partners and money are readily available if you can make a strong case for what you’re doing. So if you’ve got something that fits the bill, sign up to pitch your startup on July 16th and hopefully I’ll see you at the event!
