With both AT&T and Verizon seeking their place amid the mobile app marketplace this investment for Verizon puts them squarely into the much vaunted “location wars.” Geodelic has just released a beta test of their app, GeoGuides, which is yet-another-location-based-app that gives users suggestions on where to go and what to do; it also enables local businesses to push their existence to mobile users.

Dean Takahashi of Venturebeat fills us in on more about this investment,

Geodelic’s mobile-media platform runs on the Android, iPhone, and, soon, BlackBerry mobile platforms. The Geodelic app can be a real lifesaver when you’re looking around for something like a restaurant, coffee shop, or gas station in an unfamiliar area. With the app, you start it and it automatically finds businesses around you. You can tap on coffee shops and it will show what is nearby and how far it is. You can tap on the icon to see more about it and get directions via Google Maps.

Now the Geodelic GeoGuides platform will let brands engage with consumers in a particular location. The platform lets brands create smartphone guides that engage consumers at specific locations. A museum, hotel, tourist attraction or other special place can use the guides to target consumers with information that is relevant to them. The guides can help them discover nearby businesses and push branded content onto their social networks.

According to the article, Geodelic has raised $10 million to date, including Verizon Communications Verizon Ventures’s undisclosed amount.

Geodelic, based in Santa Monica, California, probably looks very tasty to Verizon with this sort of mobile app. It has very powerful market it’s entered into, one which connects customers with brick-and-mortar businesses—which is the ultimate power behind location-based branded services on mobile handsets. And with Verizon’s current appetitive for getting into the app market, they’ve picked a good company to invest in as a result. For local services this is a sort of advertising, for customers this is a discovery mechanism that comes to them rather than forcing them to search for it.

Verizon has been attempting to reach further into the app ecology and marketplace with their V CAST Apps store—and adding Geodelic’s app (and make it better through investment) will serve to boost their reach.  Motorola has already made its move, with the acquisition of Aloqa earlier this month.