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Internet company may acquire Foursquare

Yahoo has been making some major acquisitions and trying to expand its mobile interests since its newest CEO came on board.

Foursquare Founder/CEO Dennis Crowley.

Under CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo has been making attempts to rebuild its mobile business interests and Foursquare- the New York startup behind the local search app with the same name and location based social “check-in” app Swarm- may be the next on the web giant’s acquisition agenda.

According to techcrunch.com, one source says apart from details being ironed out, the deal is practically “done” while other sources say a deal is in the frameworks. Even yet more sources say nothing is in the works.

Whether this is all elaborate, bi coastal speculation on the part of observers and interested parties or it is actually a deal that is happening, time will tell.

When contacted for a response to the rumors, Yahoo Spokesperson and Foursquare founder/CEO Dennis Crowley declined to comment or speculate.

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Regardless, this is not the first time Foursquare has been linked to an acquisition by Yahoo. Re/code predecessor AllThingsD, when it broke the news of Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr, mentioned that Mayer had “closely watched” the progress of both startups while she was still at Google.

There are many reason why this could be a wonderful deal for Yahoo. Foursquare has to date raised just over $162million in funding with Microsoft, February 2014, valuing the company at over $600 million. The startup was also able to lock down a licensing agreement with Microsoft to power location context for Windows and mobile searches.

Yahoo has been facing some challenges though. While it is enjoying an inflow of cash from its stake in China’s Alibaba, the company has been reorganizing its leadership and has faced major criticism for its product strategy being too focused on “incremental” iterations despite the rush of acquisitions since Mayer took over.

Whatever happens, this is a situation that will be interesting to follow.

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