Foursquare: Building the Business

We first invested in Foursquare in 2009 when the company was just getting going because we believed that location was a native aspect of smartphones. Since then our conviction about the importance of location to the mobile experience has continued to grow.

Foursquare too has grown: The company’s location data now enriches the experience of 50 million people every month across the company’s website and apps. The same data also powers two rapidly growing B2B business segments: Pinpoint, a programmatic ad platform, and Enterprise Solutions which include foot traffic analytics and a places API for developers (used by Apple, Twitter and more). It is a great tribute to the tenacity of the entire Foursquare team that these products and associated revenues were built during a time period that the company was routinely written off in the media.

Now the company is on the path to profitability and we are excited to lead a $45M financing that enables Foursquare to continue growing as an independent location intelligence company. There is a fantastic leadership team in place to guide this next phase. Dennis will focus on using location to create new magical moments, with Jeff taking over as CEO. Steven who has built the revenue side of Foursquare is stepping up to the role of President. Engineering will continue to be steered by Andrew working hand in hand with Jonathan now heading up product. Kinjil, Rory, Meghan and Brian round out the team leading the marketing, finance, people and legal functions respectively.

You can find more about all of this in posts by Jeff and Dennis.

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