Prepaid credit card purveyor Green Dot scoops up Loopt

Marginalized by bigger competitors such as Foursquare and Facebook, mobile location company Loopt was acquired by Green Dot, a major provider of prepaid banking services on Friday. The deal is said to be worth $43.4 million and results in the shuttering of Loopt's current service at an unspecified future date.

Loopt's technologies will be folded into Green Dot's own services. In a statement, Green Dot says Loopt's technologies will form the basis of its planned mobile wallet offering. Loopt's patent portfolio is also of interest to Green Dot, which includes technology related to mobile marketing through real-time location-based messaging. The deal is expected to close by the end of the month.

"It's been exhilarating to see mobile become such a critical part of our collective daily lives. As this technology truly reaches the masses, I believe we're going to see the banking and payments industry fundamentally reshaped in a way that’s better for everyone", Loopt CEO and co-founder Sam Altman says.

With check-in apps becoming so commonplace, and only a few apps garnering a large portion of the market, Loopt found itself on the outside looking in. It now appears that Loopt plans to differentiate itself by using location for payments rather than check-ins. Altman and the team's plans are not exactly clear, but it would be something fundamentally different than what is available in the marketplace at the moment.

The timing of this announcement is not by coincidence. Next week starts the SXSW conference in Austin, where it is fairly likely we'll see a few new location-based services enter the fray. Had Loopt waited till after the conference to shop around for a suitor, it would have likely been a much less valuable acquisition target. Here at least the company has the spotlight to itself and steals the buzz from whatever may be announced.