Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners joins a great line up of first class VC partners as a “prize” for the winners
SAN FRANCISCO – Smaato Inc., a leading mobile ad optimizer and mobile advertising company, announced that Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners, supports The Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2009.
Harald Neidhardt, CMO and Co-Founder of Smaato stated: “We are thrilled to have Tim Chang support the awards and be a prize for the winners. We have really thought hard about what a young and passionate mobile developer would want as a prize, in order to get recognition and a chance for funding. We thought the chance to meet seven tier-one VC partners would be a great opportunity and a chance to get ahead of the game. It is great to get such big names supporting the awards – Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Mark Kvamme (Sequoia Capital), Rich Wong (Accel), Jörg Sievert (SAP Ventures), Frédéric Veyssière (Innovacom) and Niall Davis (aeris CAPITAL) – and making it such a success.”
Building on the success of last year’s awards (over 100 entries and a fantastic winner, Dialplus), this year the awards are bigger than ever with three categories open for registration:
* iPhone
* Mobile website
* Applications and games on all other mobile platforms
The Smaato Mobile Advertising Award 2009 are the most exciting awards in the world searching for the coolest mobile content. The awards showcase the best apps, demonstrate the key trends and provide insight to what we’ll be seeing in the future.
Judged by a panel of experts – mobile influencers and shakers from all around the world – the winners of the three categories will receive an unbeatable prize to gain visibility and a chance of funding! For starters the winners will be whisked away to Mobile World Congress in February with flights and hotel all included. In addition, the winners will be introduced to a number of VC’s on a partner level from Europe and the U.S. With loads of other prizes on offer too, including a booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January, the awards hope to accelerate the success of the winners.
The deadline is fast approaching – October 9 – register at http://www.smaato.com/award-register/
Notes to editors
About Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners
Tim brings a combination of operational, technical and international business experience to Norwest Venture Partners. Tim focuses on investments in mobile, gaming, digital media, and also leads NVP’s investment practice in China and Asia-Pacific. Tim led NVP’s investments in and joined the boards of directors of ngmoco, Lumos Labs, Brite Semiconductor and 3jam. He also led NVP’s investment in PCH International, a turnkey global supply chain services firm based in Shenzhen. Tim is a board observer working closely with Borqs, deCarta, Double Fusion and Veveo.
Prior to joining NVP in 2006, Tim was a principal at Gabriel Venture Partners where he was actively involved in over a dozen wireless-related deals and led Gabriel’s investments in Iridigm Display Corporation (acquired by Qualcomm), Sequoia Communications, Sandbridge, and Kajeet. He also contributed to the boards of Placeware (acquired by Microsoft) and Arula Systems (acquired by Raritan), TestQuest, NextG Networks, and IPWireless. Tim built Gabriel’s wireless sector practice and helped establish business development capabilities through strong, strategic relationships across the wireless value chain, particularly in Asia-Pacific.
Prior to joining Gabriel, Tim spent more than five years working in Japan. He was a product manager at Gateway Inc. where he successfully launched direct-marketed PC servers in the Japanese market and quickly grew an enterprise product line into a full offering of network desktops, workstations, servers and configurable turn-key solutions. Prior to Gateway, Tim was a development engineer for General Motors. As a tri-lingual engineer based in Tokyo, Tim led project teams in China, Korea and Japan in the development, testing and sales of advanced chassis control systems for clients such as Toyota and Daewoo.
Tim began his career in venture capital in 1999 during his time at Stanford Business School as part of the founding team of CTR Ventures K.K., a venture accelerator in Tokyo focused on seed and early-stage mobile consumer applications for the Japanese market.
Tim currently serves on the advisory boards of the Silicon Valley Telecom Council, Dealmaker Media, Digital Hollywood, TiE Wireless SIG, MIT/Stanford VLAB, VC Task Force, and Silicon Valley Chinese Wireless Association. He was also listed on the AlwaysON Hollywood IT List recognizing technology leaders in the entertainment industry, as well as by The Deal as one of five emerging VCs to watch.
Tim holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in electrical engineering/system engineering as well as a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.
About the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award
The award will honor mobile publishers or developers with an outstanding mobile ad-enabled solution in three categories: iPhone, in-application (any platform) or mobile web. Developers shall provide a description of their website, application or game, a download location, along with high res images and screenshots. In addition they may provide up to three PDF pages of supporting materials. Deadline is October 9th, 2009. For more information and to participate please visit: www.smaato.com/award <http://www.smaato.com/award> .
Besides meeting with the above named venture capital partners, Smaato will invite the winner to participate at the Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spain in February 2010. Additional prizes are also on offer, including a free booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January 2010.
The jury members
Bambi Francisco (vator.tv <http://vator.tv> ), Bena Roberts (GoMoNews), Caroline Lewko (WIP), Giselle Tsirulnik (Mobile Marketer), James Cameron (Camerjam), Jim Cook (MobiAdNews), Kei Shimada (Infinita), Lubna Dajani (Mobile Monday, NYC), Mark Wächter (Mobile Monday, Germany & BVDW), Matthäus Krzykowski (Editor, Venture Beat), Matthew Snyder (ADObjects), Michelle Sklar (bnetTV), Peggy Anne Salz (MSearchGroove), Ragnar Kruse (Smaato Inc.), Rudy De Waele (dotOpen/mTrends), Tim Green (Mobile Entertainment UK), Tomi Ahonen (Author), Trey Harvin (mobiThinking).
About Smaato Inc.
Smaato is a pioneering mobile advertising company that operates the leading mobile ad optimization platform called SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) and partners with mobile publishers, developers, ad networks and operators.
SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of multiple leading ad networks globally to maximize mobile advertising ARPU. SOMA can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.
Smaato is an active member of the Mobile Marketing Association, the dot.mobi Advisory Group and the German Digital Media Association BVDW. Smaato received a Top 100 Private Company Award by AlwaysOn Media (2009 & 2007) and was an Andrew Seybold Choice Awards finalist at CTIA 2008 for best Newcomer, among other awards.
Smaato Inc. is based in Redwood Shores, California. The privately held company was founded in 2005 by an experienced International management team. The European headquarters are in Hamburg, Germany.
