In addition, Foursquare's chief revenue officer Steven Rosenblatt is stepping into the role of president. He will now oversee the company’s monetization efforts. 

“Steven and Jeff know what they’re doing and totally understand the value of Foursquare’s technology and data,” Crowley said in a blog post.

Crowley will stay close to the company as executive chairman. “This new role will allow me to focus full-time on vision and innovation, long-term strategy and creating new consumer products,” he said.

The change coincides with an announcement that Foursquare has raised another $45 million in equity financing led by Union Square Ventures, along with several outside investors including Morgan Stanley. Among other plans, Foursquare will use the fresh funds to hire 30 new employees.

Foursquare is trying to put Crowley’s departure in the best light.

“The background of all of this is that it follows tremendous momentum,” a company spokesman said on Thursday. “We have been building our location intelligence company over the past 18 months, and we have seen tremendous success [while] the company just had our best month, quarter, and year in company history."

Yet, Foursquare’s fortunes have diminished in recent years. Indeed, this latest investment reportedly values the company at around $325 million -- half of what investors thought the company was worth as recently as 2013.

Separately, sources recently told Re/code that Foursquare has held discussions with potential buyers. Among other issues, it would appear as though users failed to fully embraced Foursquare’s decision to divide itself into two distinct apps.

That said, the promise of location-based social networking has never been brighter. This year, 90% of smartphones will be enabled with GPS technology. As a result, the global, real-time, mobile location-based advertising and marketing market is expected to reach $9 billion by next year.