Tag: blackberry partners fund

2009 $100,000 BlackBerry Developer Challenge: Last of the finalists selected

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on October 1, 2009, at 1:49 pm
in News
.
2 Comments

blackberry

BlackBerry Partners Fund has announced the last four finalists in the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Challenge. A total of sixteen finalists were selected over the past four months, each of which will vie for the US$100,000 grand prize package at the BlackBerry Developers Conference in November.

The final four of sixteen include:

  • 7digital Music Store (by DevelopIQ): 7digital Music Store lets users browse the latest music charts, preview the latest tracks and discover, purchase and download high quality, DRM-free MP3 music directly to a BlackBerry smartphone. The software also comes with an integrated advanced media player that imports your existing playlists and music files.
  • FileScout (by Privateer): FileScout is a file manager for your BlackBerry device. In addition to its core functionality, the software allows users to search for files, send any file by Bluetooth or as an email attachment, and open media files including pictures, movies and music files.
  • ProOnGo Expense with Receipt Reader (by ProOnGo LLC): ProOnGo Expense with Receipt Reader lets users track mileage and expenses right from their BlackBerry. ProOnGo allows users to take a snapshot of their bill with the device camera and export expenses to Excel or QuickBooks.
  • ShoZu (by ShoZu): ShoZu enables mobile users to upload photos and videos to over 50 different destinations, update statuses on Twitter and Facebook and view comments and posts on those images.

For more info on the challenge and the fund visit blackberrypartnersfund.com

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

Four more BlackBerry Developer Challenge finalists announced

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on September 1, 2009, at 12:42 pm
in News
.
4 Comments

The BlackBerry Partners Fund has revealed the next four finalists in the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Challenge. The finalists include:

So far, a total of 12 of 16 finalists have been chosen based on the following criteria: compelling product or service; clearly defined value proposition and technical execution. Four additional finalists will be selected and announced at the end of September.

Each Finalist receives a prize package that is valued at more than US$5,000, and includes one week on the BlackBerry App World Featured Application Carousel; one BlackBerry Developers Conference pass; one BlackBerry smartphone; and, guaranteed participation in the BlackBerry Sweet 16 Demo Event at the 2009 BlackBerry Developers Conference. Finalists will compete for a grand prize package valued at over US$100,000; and a runner up prize package worth more than US$25,000.

Who would you nominate given the above criteria?

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

BlackBerry Partners Fund announce more finalists in Developer Challenge

Posted
by
Kyle
on August 4, 2009, at 12:35 pm
in News
.
3 Comments

The BlackBerry Partners Fund have announced the next four finalists in the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Challenge.

The next four finalists are:

  • David by Turner Technologies
  • Sid Meier’s Pirates by Concrete Software Inc
  • CBS News by Handmark
  • Market Simplified by Market Simplified Inc.

This brings the total finalists to 8. The previous four finalists were:

  • Fierce Towers by Nickel Buddy
  • Astraware Solitare by Handmark
  • Expense Manager by Total Wireless Solutions
  • Vision for YouTube by Metova

So far, of the 8 finalists, 3 are games. This is interesting considering games make up a small percentage of total BlackBerry content sales. Finalists were selected by a panel of judges based on the following criteria: compelling product or service; clearly defined value proposition, and; technical execution. Personally, I would like to see more utilities in the finalists. These apps are constantly improving the functionality of the device and need more recognition.

My next four choices are:

  • gwabbit
  • vPost (their latest version includes screenshot functionality and a scribble feature)
  • LaterDude Pro
  • Poynt (with their new features, are they eligible to reapply?)

Who would you nominate for the Developer Challenge?

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

BlackBerry Partners Fund invests in mobile advertising

Posted
by
Kyle
on July 14, 2009, at 10:26 am
in News
.
1 Comment

blackberry partners fund

You know a company is doing something right in the BlackBerry space when they’ve received funding from the BlackBerry Partners Fund. The most recent company to catch the attention of the BlackBerry investment group is Nexage.

Nexage announced that it has closed US$4M in Series A funding from the BlackBerry Partners Fund and GrandBanks Capital.

Nexage’s initial product, AdMax is a mobile ad mediation and optimization solution that enables mobile publishers to maximize revenues from mobile ads while reducing internal operating expenses by connecting to multiple ad networks.

With investment from the BlackBerry Partners Fund, Nexage will build out its mobile advertising platform, which supports fragmented media types (mobile web, SMS, in-game and video advertising) in a single solution.

This is a great opportunity for BlackBerry in that mobile advertising is growing at a steady rate, and advertisers are seeing very favorable click-through rates. Mobile advertising is seen by many as a way of reducing the price of software while recovering development costs through advertisements.

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

Quebec excluded from BlackBerry Developers Challenge

Posted
by
Kyle
on June 1, 2009, at 10:42 am
in News
.
2 Comments

Montreal

The BlackBerry Developers Challenge is open to anyone given local and state laws do not void the contest. According to the site:

“The Challenge is open to developers working on a BlackBerry application. In order to be eligible, developers may be individuals resident, or entities located anywhere (excluding the province of Quebec).”

Quebec is host to many talented developers, and even one of the founders of the BlackBerry Partners Fund, JLA Ventures, has an office in Montreal. So why is Quebec excluded?

The Quebec government, through the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (translated to ‘the regulatory board for alcohol, contests and games) has rules that discourage chance-based sweepstakes. Among the rules: the company running the draw has to give a large percentage of the prize money to the government, and allow the Régie to change or cancel the contest at any time.

Although the Regie rules do not apply to the Developers Challenge, it is indicative of the red tape surrounding any venture in Quebec. The Quebec government, through a variety of language requirements, often impose added costs on these competitions by requiring translation and additional language support.

In the end, it was likely a legal decision to not include Quebec, just to be safe.



[This article is thanks to Roberto Rocha of the Montreal Gazette]

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

Register for the BlackBerry Partners Fund Developers Challenge

Posted
by
Kyle
on June 1, 2009, at 9:53 am
in News
.
0 Comments

blackberry partners fund

BlackBerry Partners Fund today announced the official call for entries for the second annual BlackBerry Developers Challenge. Any new BlackBerry application(s) submitted to BlackBerry App World between June 1, 2009 and September 25, 2009 may be eligible to compete in this year’s challenge. Complete rules and regulations are available online.

A total of 16 finalists will be selected from eligible applications submitted over the contest period. The finalists will each receive a prize package valued at more than US$5,000 and be invited to compete for a grand prize package valued at over US$100,000; and a runner up prize package worth more than US$25,000. Judges will be looking for the most compelling product or service, clearly defined value proposition, and technical execution.

Four finalists will be selected and announced at the end of each month during the four-month challenge. User reviews of applications and download activity will be taken into consideration when finalists are selected. All 16 finalists must present and demo their application to a panel of judges during the “BlackBerry Sweet 16″ event, which takes place at the BlackBerry Developers Conference, November 9 – 11 in San Francisco. Winners will be announced during the conference keynote presentation on November 10th.
Click through to read about the prizes available at the Developer Challenge

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

BlackBerry Partner Fund invests in organizational software

Posted
by
Kyle
on March 27, 2009, at 7:29 am
in News
.
0 Comments

blackberry partners fund

Xobni (”inbox” backwards), has some forward-thinking e-mail management ideas that have attracted the attention of the BlackBerry Partners Fund. The investment is part of a $10-million (U.S.) round of financing for Xobni – which also includes $7-million from Cisco Systems Inc. announced in January – valuing the BlackBerry Partners Fund’s contribution at about $3-million.

Xobni works with Microsoft Corp.’s Outlook and helps users better organize e-mails and other information, such as phone numbers, within the program.

This investment should surely help enterprise BlackBerry users.

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

BlackBerry Developer Conference: the Interviews (BlackBerry Cool Podcast)

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on October 31, 2008, at 4:29 pm
in Podcasts and Spotlight
.
5 Comments

The BlackBerry Cool Podcast

Ok, so we’re a little late (early?) with this edition of The BlackBerry Cool Podcast. Blame the Blackberry Developer Conference – the sunny weather and good times left us pretty unreceptive to Ottawa’s dreary climate, making doing any sort of work quite difficult.

We’ve been thinking quite a bit about BBDC this past week, because it was such a clear marker of the sea change currently underway in the BlackBerry ecosystem. There is so much energy coming from RIM and BlackBerry developers right now. The amount of cool applications displayed during the BlackBerry Cool 15, the BBDC Keynote, or by enthusiastic developers with BlackBerrys in hand was mind-boggling. If you weren’t there yourself, you wouldn’t believe BlackBerrys could do these things. I’m sure with the new APIs and tools being released by RIM, the software we see at WES will be even better.

To that end, this week’s entire podcast is dedicated to the people that help make BBDC worthwhile: developers and the VC’s that fund them.

Beth Marcus, Zeemote
Evgeny Lebanidze, BeamBerry
Peter Werry, Multiplied (Poynt)
Robert Kao, SmrtGuard (PeeKaWho)
Rick Segal, BlackBerry Partners Fund

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get anyone from BlackBerry Cool 15 winner Nobex on the podcast (they were too busy cashing their 150,000 cheque), but we’ll have them on next week. Downloading/streaming options for the BlackBerry Cool Podcast can be found after the jump, as well as links to all the relevant news stories. Enjoy!

Special thanks to BlackBerry Cool Podcast sponsor, Rove Mobile, and BBDC coverage sponsor, bitHeads!

BlackBerry Developer Conference Key News

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

BlackBerry Partners Fund Invests in buzzd, Digby and WorldMate

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on October 28, 2008, at 11:13 pm
in News
.
2 Comments

BlackBerry Partners Fund

Big news breaking from the always exciting crew over at the BlackBerry Partners Fund!

Following up a busy week where they announced the winners of the BBDC BlackBerry Developer Challenge (Poynt, Strands and BlackBerry Cool 15 winner Nobex) and made two on-the-spot offers to BlackBerry Cool 15 presenters Smrtguard and BeamBerry, the Partners Fund has announced investment in three more BlackBerry developers: buzzd, Digby, and WorldMate. Here’s a quick rundown of each developer and the investment amount:

    buzzd, a location-sensitive city guide and social network for mobile devices, has raised $3.2 million in a Series A Preferred Stock financing with BlackBerry Partners Fund, Greycroft Partners, Monitor Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures.

    Digby, a leading mobile commerce service provider, has raised $5.5 million Series B Preferred Stock with the BlackBerry Partners Fund and existing shareholders.

    WorldMate, a company that has paved the way for mobile travel innovation and serves over one million frequent flyers and road warriors around the world, has raised $8 million in a Series C Preferred Stock financing with BlackBerry Partners Fund, Motorola Ventures and AMC Communications.

Congratulations to WorldMate, buzzd and Digby! You can read the full press release after the jump, with statements from key Partners Fund members and representatives of the respective development companies.

Continue reading ‘BlackBerry Partners Fund Invests in buzzd, Digby and WorldMate’

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email

The BlackBerry Cool 15 was a huge success!

Posted
by
BlackBerry Cool
on October 21, 2008, at 3:36 pm
in News and Spotlight
.
25 Comments

BlackBerry Cool 15

We ended up having 13 developers present last night at the first annual BlackBerry Cool 15, but it turned out to be the lucky number. The drinks were flowing, the room was full, the applications were great and everybody seemed to have a good time. Before I get to thanking everyone who made this possible, I’ve got some announcements to make.

During the BBDC Keynote Today, Rick Segal of the BlackBerry Partners Fund announced that they had added a third Category to the BlackBerry Developer Challenge: The People’s Choice Award. The BlackBerry Partners Fund chose the People’s Choice winner based upon the winner of the BlackBerry Cool 15, Nobex’s Radio Companion for BlackBerry. I’m thrilled that we played a (small) part in helping Nobex receive a $150,000 debenture. Congrats, Nobex, you earned it!

Rick Segal also made on-the-spot offers to two other BlackBerry Cool 15 developers, BeamBerry and SmrtGuard. Way to go!

If you didn’t present at the BlackBerry Cool 15 this year, make sure you sign up next year, or you’ll be missing out on some serious cash.

BlackBerry Cool 15 Thank yous

Share:
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • Technorati
  • NewsVine
  • email