Two years after Last.fm was acquired by CBS, the online radio's founders Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones have announced they are leaving the company. The announcement was made on the last.fm official blog and the co-founders believe their mission at the company was completed.

“[We] feel the time is right to begin the process of handing over the reins. This is the latest stage in a long journey for us founders, which began in a living room in East London in 2002, and took us to the headquarters of one of the biggest media companies in the world,” the post read.

They gave no other explanation for the move but noted that the site was at its peak in popularity and believed that it would continue to grow under CBS' guidance. “It’s been a privilege working with the incredible team here in our London office, and we’re extremely proud of what we’ve achieved together. Last.fm’s users have more than doubled in the last 12 months (we are now at an all-time high of 37.3M monthly unique visitors), and we’re confident the site will continue to go from strength to strength,” the co-founders wrote.

Last.fm was founded in 2002 as an Internet radio station but with social components for music lovers. Its current incarnation comes after the integration of the Audioscrobbler service in 2005, which provided users with statistics about their music listening habits. The music website was later acquired by CBS in 2007 for $280 million.

The departure comes after some controversy related to a series of confusing moves coming from the company, including the announcement regarding the introduction of a subscription fee for international users, outside of the US, UK and Germany, back in March, which was later postponed. There have also been allegations that CBS requested user information data from Last.fm and then handed it over to the RIAA but the accusations have been strongly denied by both Last.fm and CBS representatives. The reasons for the split are more likely less controversial as most deals like the CBS-Last.fm one require that the founders stay with the company for a set period of time which now may have expired.