Richard Jones, the 24-year-old co-founder of Last.fm, was listening to Nina Simone as he became a millionaire yesterday, after netting $38 million (£19.25 million) from the sale of the radio and social networking website to CBS.

RJ, as he is known to other Last.fm users, is the youngest of the three founders and the only Briton. He joined up with Martin Stiksel, 32, an Austrian former DJ, and the German-born Felix Miller, 30, in 2003, after he finished a computer science degree at Southampton University.

It was as a third-year student that Mr Jones developed Audioscrobbler – the software that allows Last.fm to build a profile of a user’s musical taste by recording all of the songs that they listen to on their computer.

At the time, he said that he wanted Audioscrobbler to “become the way to discover and promote new music”.

When Mr Stiksel and Mr Miller, who founded the site in 2002, heard about Audioscrobbler, they immediately took a train to Southampton to convince Mr Jones to join the venture.

He moved to London, becoming chief technical officer and taking a 15 per cent stake.

Last.fm members congratulated him yesterday as news of the sale reached the community. “Just seen the news! WOW. I bet you’re having a couple of glasses of champers today!” one said.

Another said: “Delighted to see people profiting from an excellent idea, well-executed. Good on you and enjoy the money.”

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