Qasar Younis, partner and chief operating officer (COO) at Y Combinator, on Thursday announced his plans to leave the company to work on an independent project via a post on Facebook.

Y combinator, which has come to be known as the world's most powerful start-up incubator, was founded in 2005.

Younis joined the company in 2014 and was promoted to the position of COO a year later.

In the post announcing his plans to "move on", Younis wrote that the decision to leave Y Combinator was a difficult one and the "transition process has been planned over many months."

Younis, who was also the co-founder and chief executive officer of TalkBin, added that since the company was acquired by Google in 2011 he had thought of "starting [his] own thing."

However, he did not specify what the new project would be.

"I'm not ready to announce what i'm doing next but i'm sure it won’t be a surprise to any of you," Younis wrote.