Foursquare said it has earned $45 million in the latest funding round which gave the company a valuation of around $332 million.
The new valuation, which is comparably lower than the $650 million valuation it earned in 2013 after raising $35 million, makes Foursquare one of those start-ups which at one time raised money at higher valuations and are now forced to settle for lower valued funding.
This trend is referred to in investing circles as "down rounds."
Declining to comment on the valuation, Foursquare has instead described the funding as "oversubscribed" and that its terms are "employee friendly."
In the meantime, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley revealed some changes in the company's leadership team with the aim of placing its strongest executives in the top leadership roles.
"I've asked our COO Jeff Glueck to step into the role of CEO, and I've tapped our CRO Steven Rosenblatt to be President, acting as Jeff's co-pilot," said Crowley. "Jeff and Steven have helped to build Foursquare into the business it's become, defining new products and building strong teams. They are brilliant, experienced leaders who have grown companies like ours before."
Crowley added that he will assume the role of Executive Chairman, which will allow him to focus fully on things that are needed to build at Foursquare. These include creating new consumer products, long-term strategy and vision and innovation.
"My new job is to make sure those things get built as projects, and that the best of them get pushed into the real world as products," said Crowley.
Fred Wilson, whose company Union Square Ventures led Foursquare's new round of financing, said that the latter has created and built a business that is very real, is growing nicely and is bound for a truly bright future.
"Maybe no USV portfolio company (with the exception of Twitter) has taken it on the chin more for being the hot company that fell out of favor," wrote Wilson.
Crowley believes that in the long run, the company will make Yelp irrelevant. Foursquare has now decided to focus more on building the technologies needed to empower other services. With over 100,000 developers using the company's API, Crowley mentioned names such as Apple, Pinterest and Twitter as some of its customers.
With more than 50 million active users, Foursquare further noted that people are still using the company's consumer apps and are making more check-ins than before.
"Today, our company is confident and unified around this mission to use our understanding of location intelligence to enrich consumer experiences and inform business solutions," said Jeff Glueck, Foursquare's new CEO. "We will continue to make the world easier to map and explore - and help pave the way for further innovation and discovery."
