Foursquare CEO Crowley Steps Down as Valuation is Slashed

On Thursday, Foursquare said it had raised $45 million in a new round of venture funding, as it tries to bolster its location data-based advertising and developer businesses. The financing pegs Foursquare’s valuation at roughly half of the approximately $650 million that it was valued at in its last round in 2013, according to three people with knowledge of the deal’s terms, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, according to The New York Times.

Foursquare, which is based in New York, is likely to be joined by other start-ups this year in doing what is known in investing circles as “down rounds,” in which companies that once raised money at soaring valuations are forced to accept funding at lower values. While tech start-ups boomed in recent years — with many easily attracting investors and big sums — that environment has now turned on fears that many of these young companies got ahead of themselves, the Times reported.

In a Medium post, Crowley said the leadership changes had been “in the works for a while” and will allow him to focus full-time on long-term strategy and building the consumer product. Glueck was previously CEO of the mobile software company Skyfire Labs and cofounded the travel site Site59.com, which was acquired by Travelocity in 2002. Foursquare also said its head of revenue Steven Rosenblatt will now serve as president.

“With our business maturing and with our enterprise solutions and as programmatic advertising platform (Pinpoint) fueling our revenue growth, I felt like now is the right time to put our strongest executives in the company’s top leadership positions,” Crowley said in the post. “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. Jeff and Steven have helped to build Foursquare into the business it’s become, defining new products and building strong teams.” (Forbes)