Location-based social networking giant Foursquare has secured $41 million in financing, an investment that will help the popular platform continue its relentless growth.
Funding in this latest round came from private equity fund Silver Lake Partners and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and also Spark Capital.
The bulk of the money is a multiyear loan from Silver Lake; the rest is convertible debt that can eventually be swapped for shares. By taking on debt, rather than giving investors equity stakes, Foursquare delays a public debate about its true worth.
According to Bloomberg, early investment rounds valued the company at $600 million – not bad considering that Foursquare only generated $2 million in revenue last year, according to unnamed but knowledgeable sources cited in the report.
“This will be a very important public company one day,” says Bijan Sabet, a general partner at Spark Capital.
