Dennis Crowley is an American internet entrepreneur known as the co-founder of the social networking sites Dodgeball and Foursquare.
Early life and education
Dennis Crowley was born in Medway, Massachusetts on June 19, 1976. Crowley is the son of Dennis P Crowley and Mary Moraski Crowley.
Crowley graduated from Xaverian Brothers High School in 1994 and attended Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and received a B.A. in 1998; and an M.P.S. master’s degree from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in 2004.
Career
After graduating from Syracuse, Crowley worked for Jupiter Communications as a research analyst until 2000. The same year Crowley joined mobile app provider Vindigo as a product developer for a year. While attending at New York University, Crowley co-founded Dodgeball, with a fellow student Alex Rainert in 2003. Google acquired the company in 2005. Crowley and Rainert left Google in April 2007.
Foursquare
Crowley created a similar service with Naveen Selvadurai known as Foursquare, a location technology company. Foursquare was founded in late 2008 and launched in 2009. In November 2009, Foursquare allowed access to its API, allowing developers to obtain data produced by the Foursquare app and develop applications on top of that data.
Foursquare also opened its second office, in San Francisco, the next year, shortly after reaching one million users. In 2011, Foursquare started operating on Pilgrim, the core technology that connects stop-detection and snap-to-place functions to produce contextual awareness to Foursquare’s apps, so they can proactively involve with users in real time.
In 2014, Foursquare split into two separate apps – the Foursquare City Guide and Swarm. Since then, Foursquare has built out an API and SDK for developers to offer location-contextual experiences to their end-users.
In April 2015, Foursquare started introducing location-based enterprise products for advertisers and marketers with the launch of Pinpoint. The company later released Attribution in February 2016, a tool for media performance measurement, and the Pilgrim software development kit, which enables developers to use Foursquare’s core Pilgrim technology to attach context into their apps and services, in March 2017. Each of these tools can be applied independently, or they can be bundled together.
On January 14, 2016, Crowley stepped down as the CEO of the company. Crowley moved to an Executive Chairman position while Jeff Glueck, the company’s COO, succeeded Crowley as the new CEO.
In 2017, Foursquare employed more than 50 new staff members in different positions. Foursquare also declared its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region with partners like Samsung and Tencent, and a new office in Singapore. From 2015 through 2017, the company’s revenue increased by more than 50% each year. In early 2018, the company started a new engineering office in Chicago.
In April 2020, Foursquare has announced its plan to merge with Factual with undisclosed terms. The merged company will carry the name Foursquare, and retain Foursquare’s current CEO David Shim, while Factual’s founder and now-former CEO Gil Elbaz will be joining Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley as a member of the board and executive team.
Funding Rounds
In September 2009, Foursquare raised $1.35 million in a Series A funding round from investors such as Union Square Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and some angel investors, that Crowley was not ready to disclose at this point. Union Square’s Albert Wenger has joined the Foursquare’s board of directors.
In June 2010, Foursquare secured $20 million in a Series B funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Existing investors include Union Square Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures also participated in the funding round; giving the company a $95 million pre-money valuation.
In June 2011, Foursquare raised $50 million in a Series C funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz. Union Square Ventures, OATV also re-upped in this round, and Spark Capital came in as a new investor, but not the lead. Bijan Sabet also joined as a board observer. In this round, Foursquare has settled out a pre-money valuation at $600 million.
In April 2013, Foursquare raised $41 million in the fourth round of funding led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners. Existing investors include Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz.
In December 2013, Foursquare raised a $35 million in a Series D funding round, led by DFJ Growth and Capital Group’s SMALLCAP World Fund, and that DFJ’s Barry Schuler, a former CEO of AOL, which owns TechCrunch, joined the board. In February 2014, Foursquare received an additional of $15 million in funding as a result of a partnership with Microsoft.
In January 2016, in a Series E funding round, Foursquare raised $45 million led by Union Square Ventures, with Morgan Stanley and previous investors including DFJ Growth, A16z, and Spark Capital participating. In October 2018, Foursquare raised $33 million in a Series F funding round, co-led by strategic investors Simon Ventures and Naver Corp. and by Union Square Ventures.
In April 2020
In May 2019, Foursquare made its first acquisition. Foursquare has acquired Placed from Snap Inc. of $150 million investment led by The Raine Group. Placed is the biggest rival to Foursquare’s Attribution product. Additionally, the founder of Placed and CEO, David Shim, has become president of Foursquare.