The Hunt for Europe's Best Mobile Startup

€150,000 is up for grabs in the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition running across the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. The contest is open to any start-up with a great idea for a mobile site, service or application.

Each entry will be judged on five criteria: originality, creativity and innovation; technical and operational feasibility; economic and financial viability; value to end-users; and finally, on the quality of the management team.

The judging will take place over three rounds, the first of which is being coordinated by the organiser's of Mobile Monday London, who will put together a shortlist, from which a winner will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on September 24th, 2010.

The overall winner will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts, including Om Malik, founder of the GigaOM Network, and Rudy de Waele, founder of dotopen and co-founder of the Mobile 2.0 series of conferences.

The entry criteria are listed below, but it's worth noting that you can only enter once. When the entry has been submitted, it can't be amended.

If you have questions contact Mobile Monday's estimable Helen Keegan (@technokitten) and she'll answer directly or point you in the right direction.

Over on the Mobile Monday blog, she quizzed last year's shortlisted companies, Audioboo, Rummble and Woobius, who won a €25,000 prize. Mark Rock from Audioboo said,

"Vodafone Mobile Clicks was one of the freshest competitions of 2009. To have a mobile network operator embrace the start-up community in this way was fantastic. The quality of the judging through 3 rounds was excellent, if a little gruelling, And the support & help given all the way through to being taken to Amsterdam to compete in the finals (we didn't win, by the way) was above and beyond the normal competition process. Vodafone Mobile Clicks is worth the effort"

whilst Andrew Scott from Rummble commented,

"Vodafone put considerable energy behind the Mobile Clicks competition which definitely contributed to our profile .. it was also a lot of fun!"

and CEO of Woobius, Bob Leung said, 

"Vodafone Mobile Clicks helped us take an idea from concept to working prototype, with the assistance of an expert jury, over several rounds. We used the prize money to take the product to market, and now we are working with leading players in the construction industry. We're building them their very own Woobius Eye, that they use to share information live between desktops and mobile phones, between offices and construction sites. It's a great success. The prize money really helped us to advance our idea over our competitors and we urge anyone with a good idea to enter this fantastic competition."

Helen also has some sage advice about entries,

The competition closes on 22nd August at midnight. But please don’t leave your entry until the last minute. All entries need to be completed in English and you do need to adhere to the Terms and Conditions. The actual competition Ts & Cs are only about 6 pages - the rest of the document relates to the Ts & Cs for Vodafone’s Widget platform which you must also agree to. Yes, it’s a long document, but please give it the once over to make sure you’re happy with it. I’ve read it and I can’t see anything particularly nasty in there, but I’m not an expert on these things, nor am I a lawyer so don’t just take my word for it.

Entry Criteria

• Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 is open to any individual aged 18 or over resident in the Netherlands, Portugal or the United Kingdom and to Dutch, Portuguese and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations
• Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/ business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up in this context means that the enterprise/business must be less than 3 years old
• Each participant may submit only one entry
• Entries from Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2008 and 2009 may resubmit to Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010
• There is no charge for entry
• The competition closes on 22nd August at midnight