Infillion is acquiring location data company Foursquare, founder and executive chairman Rob Emrich tells Axios exclusively.
Why it matters: The deal puts the ad tech company in the data sales business and expands its bet on owning data that powers its platform.
Zoom in: Infillion is acquiring the entirety of Foursquare. Foursquare will continue operating as an independent brand within Infillion and selling its data to customers, including those using competing ad platforms.
- The acquisition will increase Infillion's revenue and headcount by roughly 20% to 25%, Emrich says.
- The vast majority of Foursquare's roughly 150 employees will join Infillion's 650 full-time employees, Emrich says.
- Lindsey Kintner, Foursquare's senior vice president and global head of sales, will join Infillion as general manager of its data business unit and a member of its management team.
- Foursquare CEO Gary Little will not join. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Catch up quick: Foursquare launched in 2009 as a consumer app for checking in to real-world locations.
- The company spun its check-in feature into the standalone Swarm app in 2014. Foursquare's database includes more than 100 million points of interest across 200 countries, 16 billion human-verified check-ins and aggregated coverage of 250 million U.S. devices.
- Foursquare has raised about $412 million in debt and equity financing, according to PitchBook, which valued it at $450 million following a $150 million financing in 2019. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Microsoft, Silver Lake and The Raine Group.
Between the lines: Swarm isn't purely a consumer side project. Kintner says. Foursquare uses its first-party data to help verify other location datasets. Infillion says it will evaluate the future of Swarm and Superlocal, including open-source models and strategic partnerships.
💭 Thought bubble: As a daily active user of Swarm, I asked what's going to happen to it. "We don't have anything to announce today on it," says Emrich, which gave me some anxiety.
- As someone with 16 years of check-ins at stake, I'll be watching closely.
Zoom out: Infillion has been building a broader advertising platform through acquisitions, including MediaMath, Catalina and now Foursquare.
- Emrich says Foursquare's location data business is roughly twice the size of Infillion-owned Gimbal's. Foursquare also has an established business selling data directly to customers.
- Infillion acquired Catalina earlier this year for its deterministic purchase data. Combining that with Foursquare's data on whether consumers visited a store or restaurant gives the company more information to target ads and measure real-world outcomes.
- Owning those datasets also allows Infillion to learn from campaign results much faster than when targeting, measurement and media buying are handled by separate companies, Emrich says.
What to watch: Emrich says Infillion is an "active acquirer" as advertisers want fewer standalone tools and more platforms that can deliver specific business outcomes.