Foursquare Raises $50M Capital: Company Valued at $600M

The location-based social networking website, Foursquare Labs Inc., based on software for mobile devices has raised $50 million in new venture capital. Now, the New York-based company is valued at approximately $600 million according to TechCrunch report.

The $50 million investment was led by Andreessen Horowitz and involved O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital.

It's not the first time that Foursquare was able to pull off a venture capital. The company had gathered a $20 million round about a year ago and angel funding in the fall of 2009.

Currently Foursquare app has gathered 10 million users which helps people check in at restaurants and more places with their smartphones. Also, recently the company has signed a deal with with American Express.

The service was established in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. In 2010, Foursquare has expaned to 70 employees from 15.

Crowley said that funding will be used to hire engineers in New York and San Francisco who would be working on continuing to build out Foursquare's existing services such as the Foursquare Merchant Platform. It's a platform that allows businesses to provide discounts to Foursquare users and gives them data on when people check in at their business and how regularly.

The Foursquare Merchant Platform is used by more than 400,000 merchants. About 50% of our users are coming from outside of the U.S.