Foursquare spent years helping people discover places. Its financial conclusion appears to have located a particularly exclusive destination: an acquisition with nothing for either class of stockholder.

That is co-founder Dennis Crowley’s account, reported by TechCrunch after advertising company Infillion bought the location-data business last month for an undisclosed amount. Crowley inferred from an investor’s post that neither preferred nor common equity received value. The transaction’s price remains undisclosed; this is his account of the outcome, not a published distribution statement.

The distinction between preferred and common is usually worth remembering. Here, according to Crowley, both arrived at the same place. Hierarchy retained its names while mislaying its principal advantage.

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Crowley says Foursquare’s enterprise business had consecutive years above $100 million in revenue. He blames the ending on a transition that brought in private-equity capital in 2019 and the banker who led that raise as CEO in 2021. Those are his judgments. The business was acquired, not reported to have evaporated, and its usefulness to customers is a different question from shareholders’ proceeds.

Still, the prestige of a successful exit becomes difficult to maintain when the co-founder is apologizing to roughly 1,600 former employees. The company reached a buyer. The people holding its equity, in his telling, were not included in the destination.