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Comment by stevenj | Hacker News Reader

Surprised to see that it has now raised a total of $106 million.

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/foursquare

It seems to me that investors keep pouring money into the business in order to try to keep the option to sell it at (capital contribution) break-even alive. The previous round was a +$40m debt facility, and debt, when you haven't got cash flow, ain't cheap (PIK, warrants @ down round valuation, dilution, etc.). I hope the best for the company, but sometimes I wished SecondMarket, SharesPost, et al allowed one to short startups.

Totally true about debt, however, in this market, with quantitative easing, current interest rates, etc. and with the right connections to people in finance, you can leverage a company for a lot less now than any time I can remember. Getting a loan is the hard part. If you can get one, you're getting it for pennies on the dollar.

> you're getting it for pennies on the dollar

What are you talking about? Foursquare ain't getting anything for free, if anything that debt is now over $50m at a very conservative 15% Kd assumption.

They've been around for almost 5 years now, so it's not too surprising. Not like they're a brand new startup.

They're also into mining some of the "data exhaust". Monetizing this turns them into something much bigger than a social checkin company.

Here's a presentation given at Data Driven New York. http://vimeo.com/79911529

> They're also into mining some of the "data exhaust". Monetizing this turns them into something much bigger than a social checkin company.

Location data changes very quickly: new places open and close, popularity waxes and wanes, and demographics of neighborhoods change unpredictably. Foursquare's location data is only as good as its freshness, so without a large pool of active users, there is no "data exhaust".

This is and, not or.

But it did sound like check in growth was tapering.

Something about this presentation really bugged me. From an engineering standpoint I thought it was pretty cool but as someone who really enjoys trying out random things and discovering things (thats are new to me) I would never use something like their suggestion product.

The surprising part is — who uses it? Why is it relevant? It feels like they're dragging a fad out a little too long waiting for google to buy them (again) and then immediately close it (again).

Some people really like it. I've talked to people who enjoy using it. It's not my cup of tea, but they definitely have an active user base.

Can I ask why?

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