The key facts

  • Infillion acquired Foursquare in September 2026; the deal amount was not disclosed
  • According to Crowley, investors received no payouts; the company raised more than $411 million over 17 years
  • Crowley blamed the leadership change after the 2019 round

Shareholders were left without payouts

In September 2026, the advertising company Infillion acquired the geodata platform Foursquare — once a popular social network — on undisclosed terms. Co-founder and former CEO Dennis Crowley said in a new blog post that investors saw no return from the sale. He cited a post by one of the angel investors, from which it followed that neither preferred nor common shareholders received any value from the deal. Crowley called such an outcome disappointing.

“I was crushed by such an ending”

“I was crushed by such an ending. So many people put so much time, energy, passion and love into building Foursquare — the company, the products, the brand, the culture. If you were part of it (or even close to it), you know exactly what I mean. Our roughly 1,600 former employees over 17 years — I’m sorry that Foursquare’s story ended as if our shared efforts were worth… nothing?” Crowley wrote.

Crowley blamed the leadership change

According to Crowley, after the shift to a focus on the enterprise business, the company posted revenue of more than $100 million for several years in a row. In 2019, Foursquare raised capital from a private investment firm, and in 2021 it hired as CEO a banker who had led that round. Crowley blamed the final outcome precisely on this transition, stating that management failed to preserve or create new value. According to PitchBook, the company raised more than $411 million in funding in total; in 2024, the Foursquare app was shut down.

Reaction and legacy

Several people responded to Crowley’s post, noting that Foursquare had been useful to them for discovering new places in cities and had inspired ideas for new apps. After Foursquare, social maps were developed by the startups Zenly and Jagat, as well as Instagram and Snapchat.