Green Dot is planning to integrate Loopt into its operations to improve customer acquisition and retention of its current prepaid debit cards. The company also hopes Loopt will help it drive adoption of new banking and payment products and give the company an edge in mobile payments. After the transaction closes, Loopt’s current headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., will become the new Silicon Valley hub for Green Dot’s mobile technology and product development team, according to a press release from Green Dot.
Founded in 2005, Loopt predated Foursquare, but was overshadowed by that service. Though Loopt hasn't released subscriber figures, Foursquare is said to have around 22 million subscribers.
Loopt's other major competitor, Gowalla, was acquired by Facebook in December 2011. This past week, former Gowalla CEO Josh Williams emerged to promote a new Facebook initiative to integrate location-based data, among other enhancements, to Facebook apps.
The Loopt buy caps off a tumultuous few months for location-based services. Even the current king of the category Foursquare has gone through many changes of late; earlier this week, co-founder Naveen Selvadurai announced he was leaving the company, shortly after it had moved into a larger office space.