Foursquare, the US-based social networking website, has raised $50m, with O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV), the corporate venturing division of O’Reilly Media, among the investors.
The series C round was led by technology-focused venture capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors included VC firms Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital. The round reportedly gives the company a $600m valuation, according to various news providers including TechCrunch.
The company had already raised $20m from a series B round in June last year also led by Andreessen Horowitz, and featuring involvement by OATV and Union Square. Union Square had previously led a $1.35m round of series A funding in September 2009. The series C investment takes the overall amount to $71.35m over the three rounds.
The contribution by OATV follows a series of recent investments by the corporate venturer in US-based web-based companies, including customer service site Get Satisfaction, URL-shortening service Bit.ly, online ad services company OpenX and the community-based web tool SeeClickFix. OATV was also part of the consortium which cashed in when the web itinerary company TripIt was bought out by the Nasdaq-listed travel company Concur.
Launched in March 2009, Foursquare is a social networking website which works predominantly as a mobile app for smartphones, allowing users to ‘check-in’ at various venues and landmarks, gaining points and virtual badges which can lead to discounts at local restaurants, bars and retail outlets.
As of April, the company estimated its user base had grown to 10 million worldwide, with over 400,000 business outlets using the site’s merchant platform.
Dennis Crowley, chief executive of Foursquare, said: "We’ve closed a round of funding that will enable us to hire more engineers, evolve our merchant offerings and continue our international expansion".