Foursquare's Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Glueck, has stepped into his new role as the CEO, a position formerly held by the company's co-founder, Dennis Crowley. One more notable change in management would be the new President, Steven Rosenblatt, who was previously the Chief Revenue Officer.
Dennis Crowley has seen the company's phenomenal rise to success with its pioneer app, in 2009, which introduced the concept of checking into locations for the first time. Now he's witnessing his New York-based start-up's struggle to regain its footing, after Facebook and Instagram introduced similar location concepts in their apps, a move that took away from Foursquare its exclusivity.
The former CEO who had already made his mark in the tech industry when he sold his company, Dodgeball, to Google, stated in a blog post "I will be stepping up into the role of Executive Chairman. This new role will allow me to focus full-time on vision and innovation, long-term strategy and creating new consumer products. If this sounds more like my job from 2010 than my job from 2015... well, that's the point."
He summed up his role nicely by saying "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", as mentioned in Uncova.
A fund of $45M is yet another reason for the location intelligence company to be in the news. CNET reports this much-needed financing equity, however, cuts Foursquare's valuation in half, contrary to the 2013 financing round when the company was valued at $650M but raised around $35M.
According to KCRA 3, Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson, who has led the tech company's new financing round, however, showed his faith in it by saying "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,'" And yet sitting here today, Foursquare has built a very real business that is growing nicely and has a very bright future."
This sentiment is backed by Crowley as he points out that revenues have shot up thanks to big names like Apple, Twitter and Pinterest signing with Foursquare to use its location data. By passing on the reigns to Jeff Glueck, Crowley feels he has essentially 'stepped up" when he agreed to become the new Executive Chairman.
Now armed with a new CEO and a $45M fund, Foursquare seems to be at a new high, as it is reportedly hiring 30 new positions along with further internal rearrangements.
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