Location Data Firms Combine as Snap Sells

Location intelligence provider Foursquare is acquiring rival technology Placed from Snapchat owner Snap Inc. Funding for the deal will come from a $150m investment in Foursquare by merchant bank The Raine Group.

Placed CEO David Shim (pictured right) will join Foursquare as President, and his old firm will become its flagship measurement product, branded as 'Placed powered by Foursquare'. The deal 'has been signed, and will close shortly'.

Seattle and New York-based Placed develops software which measures, aggregates and analyzes the places people visit in the real world, for use by app developers; and its Placed Insights solution uses a 'place graph' to quantify the relationship between people and the physical places they visit, with results categorized by demographic segments and geographic regions. Raw location data is combined with metadata and proprietary modeling, and then normalized to represent the US population.

Foursquare says the combined firms are now 'the clear number 1 player in Attribution', adding to Foursquare's leading position in location-aware developer tools; and will employ more than 350 people, more than 40% of whom are in engineering and data science. More than 1,000 brands, including more than 50% of the Fortune 100, 'have chosen Placed or Foursquare as a location services partner'.

The two companies have both used survey responses and consumer confirmations of location to build what they say is a uniquely reliable model for locating mobile users, 'raising the bar in an industry where inaccurate geofencing and junk source data have been all too common'.

The Raine Group investment, described as 'one of the largest investments ever in the location tech space' will not only fund the acquisition but also give the firm capital for increased R&D and expansion plans.

Snapchat, which acquired Placed in mid-2017 for a reported $200m plus, says the combined company will continue to be a Snap preferred attribution partner, demonstrating visitation lift and provide insights for its advertisers.

Web site: www.foursquare.com .