Foursquare’s founder writes the eulogy—and shares the blame

Foursquare’s 17-year story ended with a sale to Infillion and, according to founder Dennis Crowley, nothing for common or preferred shareholders. The company that made checking in a social event had run out of rewards.

Launched at SXSW in 2009, Foursquare turned visiting bars and restaurants into a competition for badges and virtual mayorships. By March 2011, it was approaching 7.5 million users. Your local coffee shop suddenly had an electoral system.

The excitement outran the business. Financing was already difficult in 2012; debt and a lower-valuation funding round followed. By 2014, user growth had slowed considerably. Crowley’s remedy was to split the app: check-ins went to Swarm, while Foursquare became a discovery service intended to challenge Yelp. The original attraction was now something management wanted to escape.

A location-data business survived, eventually reporting annual revenues above $100 million. Crowley now faults later leadership for destroying value, but his own account acknowledges that his financing and strategic decisions created the need for more capital. He ran the first seven years and remained on the board.