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The next day, Foursquare announced it received $41 million in the form of a multi-yearloan and convertible debt from new and existing investors. "This allows us to get closerto being able to prove that there's a real business here," Mr. Crowley told BloombergBusinessweek.How lucrative the new ad product will be depends upon how valuable agencies andbrands view Foursquare's data. Several agency executives who were not pitched on thenew ad product said they would readily pay for access to Foursquare's location andpsychographic data.Ken Allard, managing director of global business strategy at digital agency Huge, a unitof IPG, said Foursquare's "unique and proprietary data is incredibly valuable." He addedthat the data could be used to predict how temperature will affect whether consumers buyhot or cold drinks.Ian Schafer, CEO of digital agency Deep Focus, said Foursquare has one of the mostreliable place databases on the Internet."I'm bullish on the business potential of what Foursquare has built and its value is notnecessarily linearly tied its platform," he added.Others were less enthused. One agency executive said it will be difficult for Foursquareto differentiate itself from Facebook, Twitter and mobile ad tech startup PlaceIQ as aprovider of useful location-based marketing data.Foursquare said its trove of data includes the 3.5 billion check-ins made on its platformand the data it receives from the more than 40,000 developers that have integratedFoursquare's location database in their apps, including the popular apps Instagram, Uberand Evernote. Check-ins may have declined, but Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley saidthe company is compensating by becoming "the location layer for the Internet."Using this location data to attract large brand advertisers both on and off its platform willbe crucial to Foursquare's potential success. Small businesses -- the stores that users canreadily find via Foursquare -- devote only 3% of their advertising budgets to digital, 12percentage points lower than the national average, according to a recent BostonConsulting Group survey.Foursquare said it is currently working with Burger King, Lord & Taylor and StarwoodHotels among other prominent fast food, retail and hotel brands.59