Foursquare, a US-based location intelligence provider backed by corporates Naver, Simon Property and O’Reilly Media, agreed on Monday to merge with US-based peer Factual.
The companies each provide mobile location data to businesses including Microsoft, Samsung, Snap, Twitter and Uber in order to inform marketing and business intelligence decisions, generating more than $150m in revenue in 2019 between them.
The transaction will create what Foursquare and Factual described as the undisputed market leader in the location intelligence sector, stretching across more than 500 million mobile devices across the globe.
Foursquare CEO David Shim will retain his position at the combined business having taken the reins in December 2019, six months after it acquired his previous company, Placed. The merged entity will operate under the Foursquare brand.
The Placed acquisition was financed by $150m from merchant bank Raine Group that followed $265m in funding for Foursquare since it was founded in 2009.
Foursquare received $25m in series F funding in late 2018 from Simon Ventures, the investment arm of property developer Simon, as well as internet group Naver, Union Square Ventures (USV) and Pitango.
Media company O’Reilly’s Alphatech Ventures (OATV) unit joined USV in the company’s $1.4m series A round in 2009 before it added $20m in series B funding from USV, Andreessen Horowitz and Spark Capital the following year.
The latter three contributed to a $50m series C round for Foursquare in 2011 alongside OATV at a $600m valuation. Its other backers include Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, Silver Lake Partners, Capital Group and DFJ Growth.
Factual has raised a total of $104m from Upfront Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Altpoint Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Data Collective, Haystack Partners, Heritage Group, Index Ventures, Miramar Ventures, Tamarisk Global, Idealab, SV Angel and various angel investors.
