Peter Stern, CEO of URL-shortener Bitly, has resigned

Stern will "pursue other interests," no successor has been named

Usually when the CEO of a company steps down, there will be a big announcement about it. Sometimes CEO will even make a  big statement, thanking everyone who he or she worked with over the years, like Andrew Mason did earlier this month, when he was fired as CEO of Groupon.

That is not the case with link-shortening company Bitly, though. CEO Peter Stern, has decided to leave, it was announced Monday, with the news being revealed in this an oddly short blogpost:

"Bitly is announcing today that Peter Stern has resigned to pursue other interests.

'Peter has been a key leader and contributor to the Company,' said Bitly Board member Sam Mandel. 'In particular he has been instrumental in transforming Bitly into a successful business while growing its unparalleled data set. We are very happy that he will remain a shareholder and supporter.'"

Stern, who co- founded messaging and collaboration service Zenbe, which was bought by Facebook in 2010, was CEO of the company for a little over a year.

It is not clear what those "other interests" are at this point, nor if the company has a new CEO in mind or when a new CEO will be installed. VatorNews has reached out to Bitly to get more details, and we will update if we hear anything new.

Founded in 2008, the New York City-based Bitly allows users to shorten links, making sharing easier and allowing companies to gain further insights into campaigns by tracking the shortened links. Bitly powers over 10,000 custom short URLs and offers an enterprise analytics platform that helps web publishers and brands grow their social media traffic.

The company was originally the default link shortener used by Twitter, until Twitter deciced to develop its own product in 2009. In February, Bitly introduced link insights, to show users the "life" of a link, along with real-time insights, including the first to save a link, or saving a link that was popular today or in the past.

The company has raised a total of $28.5 million, including $10 million in a Series B round led by RRE Ventures, with participation from new-comer AOL  Ventures and previous investors O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures, SV Angel, Founders Fund, Mitch Kapor, and several other angels, in October 2010. 

The company then raised $15 million in a Series C round of funding led by Khosla Ventures in July 2012.

(Image source: https://www.businessinsider.com)