Andreessen Horowitz May Soon Invest in Startup Foursquare

The Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Andreessen Horowitz may invest in startup Foursquare (News - Alert), The Wall Street Journal reported.

The Journal cited one unnamed person "familiar with the matter" in its story.

Terms of the deal were not released, and Andreessen Horowitz was mum on its potential involvement.

"Foursquare is an outstanding startup, and we have a lot of respect for [Chief Executive] Dennis [Crowley] and his team," Andreessen Horowitz spokeswoman Margit Wennmachers told The Journal.

Foursquare is a location-based services company, and the additional funding would likely allow the company to expand.

Crowley told The Journal in an interview last Friday that Foursquare membership has more than doubled since March.

The service, founded in 2007, has 1.7 million users and is "picking up 100,000 users every 10 days," The Journal reported.

The funding deal could be announced as early as this week, The Journal said.

Last September, Foursquare received $1.35 million from investors including Ron Conway, who funded Google and PayPal (News - Alert) in the late 1990s and early 2000s; Jack Dorsey, the original CEO and co-founder of Twitter; and Union Square Ventures, which has seeded many well-known web companies like Twitter and Etsy, according to The Journal.

Yahoo and Facebook (News - Alert) have reportedly been in acquisition talks with Foursquare, according to recent media reports.

In 2009, Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen formed their new venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, and their first fund - $300 million in size - was aimed at investing in new entrepreneurs, products and companies in the technology industry.

The partners, before founding the new firm, started three companies directly, created many new products and services, and were on a cross-section of company boards.

In a related matter, BOKU, a mobile payments company, recently announced a strategic investment by Andreessen Horowitz.