BTC Near HoldCo LLC × Near Intelligence, Inc.
Near Intelligence, a location data broker, filed for Chapter 11 in December 2023. Its primary lender, Blue Torch Finance, acted as the 'stalking horse' bidder. [59] Since no other qualified bids were submitted, the auction was cancelled and the sale to Blue Torch affiliate BTC Near HoldCo LLC was approved by the court on February 22, 2024. [54] The price was a credit bid valued at $50 million, consisting of debt forgiveness and financing provided to Near during the bankruptcy. [55, 59]
The asset
Substantially all assets of the global data intelligence company, whose platform analyzes location, transaction, and other real-world signals from over 1.6 billion users.
- 1.6B users
- 44 countries
The record
- Seller status
- Chapter 11
- Sector
- location intelligence
- Modalities
- location_data, consumer_data
- Jurisdiction
- US
- Docket
- 23-11962
- Personal data
- A bankruptcy court order placed restrictions on the use, sale, or transfer of location data from sensitive U.S. locations and required the buyer to establish a 'sensitive location data program' to create and monitor a list of sensitive sites like healthcare facilities and houses of worship.
What it means if you hold data
This sale demonstrates the significant value of large-scale location and behavior datasets, even when the company that collected them fails. The intervention by the FTC and court-ordered restrictions on handling sensitive location data also signal increasing regulatory scrutiny over how personal data is treated in bankruptcy sales. [36]