Foursquare excitement surrounding web3 and the metaverse has drawn many entrepreneurs who defined the first generation of native mobile apps to wonder what’s next.
Dennis Crowley, the co-founder of Foursquare, is on the co-founding team of a new startup called LivingCities, along with Matt Miesnieks, who recently sold his most recent startup 6D.ai to Niantic for an amount that hasn’t been said, and designer John Gaeta, who is best known for his work on the Matrix movies. The trio claims to have received $4 million in early funding for their project, led by DCVC. Eniac Ventures, Anorak, and Matthew Ball are among the other investors.
“When Foursquare was just starting, the biggest change that came up was something like, ‘Okay, let’s make some software that changes the way people do things.’ use physical space, ‘and how people interacted with one another.
we executed that was we tried to turn life into a game, we tried to turn spaces into a game, we tried to make it easier to meet up with people, and much of what he did worked.”However, that was thirteen or fourteen years ago, and in that time, technological advancements have occurred,” I think that the basic idea that software can change how people interact with the world is still important and unresolved in many ways, and that’s what keeps me coming back to the challenge.
The founding team doesn’t say much about what they’re working on, other than that it’s a “social layer” for consumers based on interacting with virtual spaces that capture the “spirit” of real-life geographies and cities. The “mirror-world” platform will incorporate web3 elements, but the team hopes to avoid the “rampant speculation” that many associates with cryptocurrency.
CEO Miesnieks says the team is primarily interested in developing a network that exists only on the web and mobile web, smartphones potentially bypassing app stores and their associated fees, but he is not looking to build another augmented reality startup or compete with mapping players like Niantic or Snap.
“If you’re going to build something for consumers, we believe you should build on readily available technology today,” Miesnieks says.
Crowley retired from his full-time position at Foursquare just under a year ago, after more than a decade with the company. According to TechCrunch, he and his co-founders founded their new company after asking themselves questions about the role new technology can play in bringing people closer together.
“What are some of the things we want to see in the world?” What kinds of experiences have only recently become possible as a direct result of changes in people’s smartphones and other electronic device usage patterns? Crowley: “It seemed like we could do more to combine the digital and physical worlds.”
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