Which of these 16 Startups has what it takes to succeed in the 4G Nirvana?

VentureBeat announces 16 finalists in this year’s hunt for the Tesla Award at MobileBeat 2011

San Francisco – July 8, 2011 –Today, VentureBeat, Silicon Valley’s source for what’s hot in technology and entrepreneurship is announcing the 16 finalists in the MobileBeat 2011 Startup Competition. Having bested over 90 entrants to the competition, each of the 16 startups will have the opportunity to take the stage for a five-minute demonstration in front of over 650 mobile influencers, investors and press. The startup competition is a staple of MobileBeat 2011, which takes place at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco July 12-13.

Eight consumer applications and eight infrastructure services will compete for the Tesla Award, named for Nicola Tesla an early pioneer in mobile communications. Mobile incubator Tandem Ventures is sponsoring this year’s competition and finalists will also have the opportunity to win great prizes yet to be announced. The judges are industry influencers with an eye for what is successful in mobile including: Sanjay MacWan of AT&T, Bill Maris of Google Ventures, Aydin Senkut of Felcis Ventures, Tim Lee of Sequoia Capital and Doug Renert of Tandem Capital.

Finalists in the consumer category include:

Tappmob – Provides smartphone users with a new generation of highly-specialized apps.
SpeedySwipe – Developers of a mobile commerce solution that uses a smartphone camera to securely complete transactions.
Cross Travel – Creators of an API that powers app experiences, letting consumers find and book hotels or trips from multiple publishers.
DealNet – Developers of a hyper localized coupon advertising platform for mobile.
Gamzee – Makers of social mobile games that play on every device.
Akibot – Developers of a robot assistant for smartphones.
Polkast – Allows users to access all of the files on a PC directly from a tablet or mobile device securely.
Onavo – Maker of apps to help smartphone users reduce, understand and manage their data.

Finalists in the infrastructure category include:

Roar Engine – Maker of a platform that lets anyone easily build social games.
LiveDibs – Maker of a marketplace that will let both consumers and businesses take advantage of deals.
playSocial – Developers of a distribution API that connects browser-based mobile social games with social networks, web portals and more.
Global Locating Systems – Maker of a small luggage tag that allows consumers and airlines to track their luggage assets in real-time.
card.io – Maker of an SDK that lets mobile app developers easily implement mobile credit card payments.
Kopo Kopo – Makes it possible for any small businesses in emerging economies to accept mobile payments.
App55 – Creator of a platform that lets any online merchant offer their customers mobile shopping as simple as using Amazon.
MobileSense – Creator of tools that allow mobile users to bookmark content of any media type.

The consumer competition is taking place on July 12th and the infrastructure competition takes place the following day on July 13th. Winners of each category will be announced at the end of the day after their respective competitions.

Previous winners of the Tesla award include Admob, Loopt, EduPath and Micello.

To see the competition live, register for MobileBeat 2011 today:
http://mobilebeat2011.eventbrite.com/

About MobileBeat

MobileBeat convenes the brightest minds from across all sectors of the industry to explore who will win in what we’re calling “the 4G Nirvana.” The mobile industry was already on fire. But the arrival of 4G wireless networking this year the will drive the industry through an even more radical transformation. Learn what Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Rovio, DeNA and Zynga — along with the hottest mobile startups — are doing to leverage 4G. We’ll also explore the latest trends and business opportunities in the exploding mobile gaming sector. With enormous synergy between mobile and games, which is why we’re co-locating MobileBeat 2011 with our third annual GamesBeat conference on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Both events will have a number of congruent themes and overlapping sessions. MobileBeat is offering a joint pass that allows for full access to both events. For full conference details follow this link: http://events.venturebeat.com/mobilebeat2011/

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