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Foursquare Closes $20 Million Series B

32 points by peter123 16y ago

rbranson 16y ago
Not to be a hater or be a potential-Twitter-doubter, and my thoughts about the product aside, what do these guys need $20 million for? The only exit for a company like FourSquare is a buyout, and is someone really going to pay $30m or $40m for FourSquare?
- rjett 16y ago
  There were rumors of Yahoo eying the purchase of Foursquare a few months back for $100 million. Even though this never happened and was merely a rumor, I do believe someone might be interested in paying $30-40 mil for it. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/06/businessinsider-yahoo-considers-buying-foursquare-for-100-million-2010-4.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/06/...
- jackowayed 16y ago
  We're not talking $30 or $40M since the valuation was $95 pre-money. The real question when they raise at that high of a valuation is whether someone pay several hundred million for them.
  - rbranson 16y ago
    Right, it would have to be a few hundred million for the VCs to make anything back. This product is either going to have to get a much larger userbase, become ridiculously compelling, or develop some sauce that's worth buying.
- inmygarage 16y ago
  engineers. marc andreessen did a talk a few months ago at Stanford (get it at ecorner.stanford.edu) where he talks about how the mobile app market looks a lot like the early days of boxed software - a million half-decent attempts but nothing really amazing. and then came microsoft. the world of mobile apps seems at present to be an arms race and most of that $20m is likely going to be spent on the guns and bombs of the tech world: great engineers.
  - moultano 16y ago
    The last time this company was acquired, it was called Dodgeball. Google bought the talent, canned the project, and then the founders quit and reimplemented it under a different name (Foursquare.) I'd be wary of buying the company for the engineers after an outcome like that.
    - po 16y ago
      Maybe you wouldn't worry if you were buying the product to develop it and were not planning on throwing it in the closet to wither. I think Dennis was under the impression that they would continue developing the project, not just paying for his talent. The foursquare guys really do believe in the idea. If I had what I thought to be a great idea, and someone canned it and told me to do some other work, I would quit and start over too.
- dotcoma 16y ago
  the valuation is $95m now, so a positive exit has to be in the hundreds of millions...
narrator 16y ago
The ascent of foursquare is a big win for Scala and Lift too, given that it's probably the most high profile Lift/Scala project out there.

32 points by peter123 16y ago

Not to be a hater or be a potential-Twitter-doubter, and my thoughts about the product aside, what do these guys need $20 million for? The only exit for a company like FourSquare is a buyout, and is someone really going to pay $30m or $40m for FourSquare?

rjett 16y ago
There were rumors of Yahoo eying the purchase of Foursquare a few months back for $100 million. Even though this never happened and was merely a rumor, I do believe someone might be interested in paying $30-40 mil for it. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/06/businessinsider-yahoo-considers-buying-foursquare-for-100-million-2010-4.DTL http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/06/...
jackowayed 16y ago
We're not talking $30 or $40M since the valuation was $95 pre-money. The real question when they raise at that high of a valuation is whether someone pay several hundred million for them.
- rbranson 16y ago
  Right, it would have to be a few hundred million for the VCs to make anything back. This product is either going to have to get a much larger userbase, become ridiculously compelling, or develop some sauce that's worth buying.
inmygarage 16y ago
engineers. marc andreessen did a talk a few months ago at Stanford (get it at ecorner.stanford.edu) where he talks about how the mobile app market looks a lot like the early days of boxed software - a million half-decent attempts but nothing really amazing. and then came microsoft. the world of mobile apps seems at present to be an arms race and most of that $20m is likely going to be spent on the guns and bombs of the tech world: great engineers.
- moultano 16y ago
  The last time this company was acquired, it was called Dodgeball. Google bought the talent, canned the project, and then the founders quit and reimplemented it under a different name (Foursquare.) I'd be wary of buying the company for the engineers after an outcome like that.
  - po 16y ago
    Maybe you wouldn't worry if you were buying the product to develop it and were not planning on throwing it in the closet to wither. I think Dennis was under the impression that they would continue developing the project, not just paying for his talent. The foursquare guys really do believe in the idea. If I had what I thought to be a great idea, and someone canned it and told me to do some other work, I would quit and start over too.
dotcoma 16y ago
the valuation is $95m now, so a positive exit has to be in the hundreds of millions...

narrator 16y ago

The ascent of foursquare is a big win for Scala and Lift too, given that it's probably the most high profile Lift/Scala project out there.