MobileBeat Startup Competition: Infrastructure players try to shake up the way you use your phone

The MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, sponsored by Palm, wrapped up this afternoon with the introduction of five more infrastructure and services companies working to break down and rebuild the way we all use our mobile phones. Two winners at the end of the day — selected from a field of 20 consumer apps and infrastructure services — will receive prestigious Tesla Awards.

The panel of judges for the afternoon portion of today’s contest includes Peter Barry, head of venture capital and startups for Vodafone; Navin Chaddha, managing director at Mayfield Fund; Shai Goldman, director of SVB Accelerator for Silicon Valley Bank; and Brook Wessel of T-Mobile Ventures.

The judges are evaluating the startups based on three factors: presentation (each startup gets 4 minutes), innovation, and market opportunity. This second group of infrastructure and services startups presenting today includes:

Enole: Identity authentication startup Enole provides a secure way for people to use the same login information to access the internet through a multitude of devices, facilitating mobile payments, keyless entry functionality, and more. Built on top of DNS, Enole’s cloud-based platform is compatible with a number of devices, including those using near-field communications technology like Bluetooth, RFID deployments, WiFi spectrum, and smart cards.

Judge response: “I think payments have been tried for many years and there have been many false starts, but I do think the ecosystem is coming together in the next two to three years, and some of the Catch-22’s of who goes first are being resolved, so I think the time is right,” said Barry. “I’m just wondering if there’s a secret sauce here that will keep the competitors at bay.”

POIdo: The startup operates an auction-based model for selling location-based advertising. That way, it can target advertisements at users based on their exact locations, the context of them being there, and their recent behavior in other applications on their phones — without bombarding them with a spammy number of ads. The company announced today that it has signed a deal with Russia’s second largest web portal.

Judge response: “What looks compelling is the ability for an advertiser to go across multiple platforms, that is a unique value proposition for advertisers, so this looks very interesting,” said Wessel.

Thumbspeak: The startup helps businesses and marketers reach customers with mobile surveys that even the most difficult demographics are willing to answer. This allows them to collect feedback and optimize the services and products they provide. Survey respondents receive compensation and rewards in exchange. The Thumbspeak application, launching officially today, is now available in the iTunes App Store.

Judge response: “Clearly there is a market need and an opportunity, but it is a very competitive space,” said Chaddha. “It’s unclear from the presentation why you think you are going to win, but you can only do so much in four minutes.”

Aava Mobile: The startup seeks to provide a truly open-source device — including hardware and software — that combines phones, laptops, televisions and music players into one. The company gives developers, equipment manufacturers and carriers alike the tools they need to build a variety of applications, extending the device’s capabilities.

Judge response: “Consumers love cool products regardless of whether they actually make calls — look at the iPhone or HTC — so if you have cool products someone will buy them,” said Goldman. “The team looks like they have a good background. Cool products and a good team can make a lot of money.”

Sentegra: Mobile transaction startup Sentegra has come up with an all-encompassing mobile wallet platform with its meWallet system. In addition to secure mobile payments, meWallet also includes authentication and certification functionality, as well as digital ticketing.

Judge response: “Clearly there’s a market for something like MeWallet and there are a lot of startups and companies trying to address it,” said Chaddha. “Some feedback: It would have been good if you could have talked about some use cases. You guys have built such a comprehensive system but who are the customers in the spaces where you are winning? There is room for someone to own this market.”

As emcee and VentureBeat Executive Editor Owen Thomas noted, the stakes are pretty high in the MobileBeat Startup Competition. The exposure of winning has successfully propelled previous recipients to the top of their fields.

In 2008, the winner of best overall infrastructure was AdMob, which went on to sell to search giant Google for $750 million less that two years later. And both of last year’s winners, Aloqa and IQ Engines are raising funding and gaining significant traction.