Foursquare Climbs the Ranks Posted on June 28, 2011 Post a comment

When @dens and @naveen’s baby Foursquare launched at South by Southwest in early 2009, many considered it to be no more than another geolocation fledgling, a flash in the pan, if you will.

Two years, 10 million users, two lucrative partnerships with American Express and Groupon, and a very recent $50 million in venture capital later, Foursquare is now valued at $550 to $600 million. The ball started rolling rather slowly, as it took the startup five months to get its first 100,000 users; though, in just seven weeks it gained its last million.

This new round of funding led by Andreessen-Horowitz and including O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Spark Capital, doubles previous investments of just over $21 million.

Numbers, $ signs, cha-ching, yada yada … what does it all mean? Directly, it means that Foursquare has [finally?] solidified itself as the real deal. It means that we will continue to see where people are at all hours of the day. It means that the company will continue to expand its merchant offerings. And perhaps most importantly, it means that Foursquare isn’t fading anytime soon. The only direction we’ll see it go is up—up and into consumers’ hands.

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