Unfolded.ai Acquired by Foursquare

The rapid growth of Unfolded.ai culminated today with its acquisition by Foursquare. This announcement follows closely after the startup successfully completed its seed funding round.

Financial details of the transaction have not been made public. Unfolded.ai had secured approximately $6 million in funding prior to this acquisition.

Building on Geospatial Expertise

Founded by former geospatial engineers from Uber, Unfolded.ai leveraged the power of open-source libraries. These included Kepler.gl, a web application for visualizing geospatial datasets, and Deck.gl, a framework for processing and preparing data for visualization.

The founders had previously created these libraries, and the company was built upon their existing foundation.

Foursquare's Strategic Expansion

As previously reported, this acquisition is intended to integrate Unfolded’s geospatial capabilities into Foursquare Everywhere. This represents Foursquare’s new strategic direction, focusing on providing scalable location services to a diverse customer base.

Foursquare has undergone a substantial transformation in recent years. It now operates primarily as a location-based advertising and marketing platform.

Recent Foursquare Developments

The merger with Factual in April 2020 marked a significant turning point for Foursquare. Subsequently, Gary Little assumed the roles of CEO and president in November, replacing David Shim.

This acquisition of Unfolded.ai is the first under Little’s leadership.

Foursquare's Vision for Location Technology

According to the company’s official statement, the acquisition will position Foursquare as the leading provider of high-quality location data and the associated technologies needed for effective analysis.

Foursquare aims to be the go-to resource for companies seeking to understand and utilize location intelligence.