PlaceIQ Buys Freckle IoT, Marking Second Instance of Location Consolidation in 2 Days

Location intelligence firm PlaceIQ bought fellow location data and measurement company Freckle IoT. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The move comes just a day after the bombshell announcement that location leader Foursquare was merging with location data firm Factual. Speculation that the Foursquare-Factual merger could portend additional consolidation in the location data-driven marketing and insights industry came to fruition quicker than analysts could have predicted.

PlaceIQ chief Duncan McCall told AdExchanger that there are “probably still too many” companies in location and that he expects additional consolidation. Between the financial pressure related to this year’s coronavirus-fueled economic downturn and the added, post-acquisition strength of Foursquare and PlaceIQ, consolidation that many have expected for years is all the more likely to arrive in coming months.

For Freckle, the move makes sense on a couple of fronts. Firstly, it transitions the company’s attribution business to a market leader where it can thrive instead of facing off against larger competitors in a tough economy. Secondly, the sale allows Freckle founder Neil Sweeney and his team to focus on stewarding Killi, the Freckle sister company focused on data privacy and fellow Sweeney brainchild that seems to have arrived at the perfect moment—just as the global privacy movement takes off with GDPR, CCPA, and future legislation in the works across the US.