The location-focused company, which merged with fellow location-focused company Foursquare in 2020, is set to join a growing list of companies shedding employees, one of their largest cost centers, in 2024.
According to an email sent to employees on Thursday afternoon by current CEO Gary Little and viewed by TechCrunch, the company laid off 105 employees in order to “streamline” operations and “put the company on a more sustainable financial footing.”
Affected employees had their access to the system removed immediately upon receiving a notification email from Foursquare.
Little did not respond to a request for comment by the time this article was published Thursday evening, and his letter to employees did not reveal much about Foursquare's future plans. A source said the layoffs represent roughly 25% of the company's workforce.
However, the letter also details which divisions have been affected and, in relation to them, which divisions Foursquare plans to discontinue, including Visits, OCF, and Foursquare City Guide.
Foursquare has also paused work on a number of other initiatives, including “our mobile developer tools, Geode, and the current versions of FSQ Insights,” according to Little's letter.
A popular early iPhone service that encouraged users to “check in” at specific locations to earn badges and supported its business with hyperlocal advertising revenue, Foursquare has since evolved into an enterprise tech company where brands and publishers use its data.
For example, Atmosfy, a seed-funded short-form video platform that invites users to explore local businesses, is using Foursquare’s API to power its own app.
After merging with Factual, which offers location software that helps marketers hone in on customer segments (for example, people searching for a new home), Foursquare has made further progress in the same direction.
Today's layoffs aren't the first for Foursquare: Employees were laid off during the merger, and some have reported that the company plans another round of layoffs in 2022.
Little became CEO in late 2020, about six months after Foursquare and Factual announced their all-stock merger (the combined company would drop the Factual brand).
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Little was brought on board primarily to protect and grow Foursquare's investment from merchant bank Rain Group, where Little was previously managing director and which led the company's $150 million funding round in 2019.
Foursquare hasn't disclosed a new funding round since then. The 15-year-old company has raised an estimated $400 million to date.