Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley has stepped aside as CEO of the company, and he's been replaced by Jeff Glueck, who has been the tech player's COO for 18 months. Crowley will serve as executive chairman of the 7-year-old mobile app. In addition, its chief revenue officer, Steven Rosenblatt, has been promoted to president to complete the organizational reconfiguring. 

Leveling Up at Foursquare. https://t.co/KPT8QvTsdX pic.twitter.com/cr8xkLAQx5

— Foursquare (@foursquare) January 14, 2016

While it's no shock that Foursquare made changes—investors are reportedly anxious to see more growth—it's at least slightly surprising to see Crowley relinquish the chief leadership role. He co-founded Foursquare in 2009 with Naveen Selvadurai, and the company said late last year that it had 55 million monthly users.

In a blog post today, Crowley stated that the role of executive chairman "will allow me to focus full-time on vision and innovation, long-term strategy and creating new consumer products. If this sounds more like my job from 2010 than my job from 2015… well, that's the point. It frees up my time from operational and management duties and allows me get back to the 'let's just make something awesome that people love' spirit that got us here."

Crowley has reason to feel optimistic about where Foursquare could go from here. On Thursday, his company also announced it's raised $45 million in equity financing from Union Square Ventures and outside investors including Morgan Stanley.