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Foursquare Finishes Its Down Round, and CEO Dennis Crowley Steps Away

Former COO Jeff Glueck is the new boss.

Noam Galai / Getty Images
Peter Kafka
Peter Kafka covered media and technology, and their intersection, at Vox. Many of his stories can be found in his Kafka on Media newsletter, and he also hosts the Recode Media podcast.

Last month we told you that Foursquare was raising money at a valuation of $250 million — or less than half of the value of its last funding round.

Now Foursquare, which makes apps that let you find local restaurants and stores and “check in” to them, has announced the raise, led by previous investor Union Square Ventures. As part of the $45 million deal, CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley is getting bumped upstairs to executive chairman; COO Jeff Glueck will get Crowley’s old job.

We would have told you about Crowley’s move last month as well, but when we asked him if he was leaving the CEO spot he said it wasn’t so. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIP_KDQmXs

Here’s something that is true: The new money represents Foursquare’s last chance to build the big-time business it has always promised to build.

You can see where the company would like to go by reading Union Square partner Albert Wenger’s blog post, which talks up its data business and says the company is on a “path to profitability.”

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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