Foursquare announced a $35 million Series D investment today from DFJ Growth and the Capital Group’s SMALLCAP World Fund, as it breezed past 45 million users for its location-based recommendation service. Barry Schuler, Managing Director of DFJ Growth, will now join the Foursquare board.
“This investment means that we can build our vision even faster,” Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley said. “And that you guys are going to see a lot more from our team.”
Only eight months ago, the company raised a massive $41 million in debt financing from private equity fund Silver Lake Partners, as well as venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Spark Capital.
Foursquare is taking on a huge amount of investment right now, but it needs to prove that its service can be monetized effectively. Millions of people are still using the app – a recent iOS 7 redesign with proactive notifications will have helped – and with that comes mountains of useful data for brands and businesses. Furthermore, Foursquare opened up its self-service ads platform to small businesses in October, giving them the ability to buy in-app promotions that would then be displayed in users’ feeds.
The service is popular, but with only $2 million in revenue last year the question still stands: Can Foursquare establish itself as a real business?
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➤ Blog Post [Foursquare]
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