Earlier this morning, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis settled their lawsuits with eBay and a syndicate of investors in return for a 14 percent stake in the company they founded. The lawsuits were complicating the spin-off of Skype from eBay because the Skype founders still controlled the service’s underlying peer-to-peer technology.
In an interview with me this morning, Marc Andreessen, one of the investors through his new fund Andreessen Horowitz, told me, “The deal was never held up. The money was in escrow and was going to close” even if the lawsuits weren’t settled. The transaction is on track to close later this quarter. The other investors are Silver Lake Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Index Ventures and Mike Volpi are out of the deal. Josh Silverman will continue to be CEO.
Andreessen is glad that the lawsuits are settled and that the “Joltid IP is now owned by Skype,” but was prepared to litigate if it didn’t work out. He explains: “This was a completely known situation going into it. It was one of the reasons the deal was available, because of the situation. We assumed it would be a good idea to bring the founders on board and resolve all the issues, we are very pro-founder. There was some drama along the way, but we came out with everybody in the same boat rowing in the same direction.”
In addition to legal avenues, Skype also had the option to try to switch to a different technology, such as SIP-based Internet telephony. “Had this not happened,” says Andreessen, “there were various technological paths that could have been followed. Now that it is settled, it is not necessary to make any changes. The technology is scaling very well.”
Skype is on a $740 million revenue run-rate and boasts 521 million users worldwide. “Skype is gigantic and yet still a relatively small percentage of international call volume,” notes Andreesen. “This is, and ought to be, one of the most important companies on the Internet.”
Now that the deal drama is over, we’ll get to find out.
The headline is spot on. I’m still amazed that businesses don’t invest in Skype as an IM and teleconferencing service. It offers so much to everybody of any size. Here at Glasscubes.com, while we use our platform to share documents, tasks and things, Skype is fundamental and also so very useful in what it does.
Having worked for multinationals, it amazes me that corps don’t adopt the technology. Conference calls, screen sharing, IM, web conferencing. And it’s all so seemless. Still there is a lot I don’t know about the background and the technology behind it – maybe there’s something I’m missing.
But as a user, it’s a dream and, for me, definitely one of the most important companies/tools on the net.
Rob, you get it just as Silverlake and Andreessen do. Silverlake has been known to invest in interesting and successful telephony companies.
I say time and time again, Skype was an “ahead of it’s time” creation and investment for eBay.
I figures this scramble would happen now with blanket wifi coming in just a few years from AT&T and Verizion. Skype will generate billions for it’s owners when we all replace traditional phone services for Skype powered devices working over the old FCC white space coverage area.
please please IPO it
Hell yeah
Smartest thing the Sype founders ever did was spin off the p2p technology from Kazaa .
I’m sorry but based on adressons view on ning I don’t take his word for much.
This guy’s declaration is like saying “I am the coolest person in the world”
Yeah, yeah, we get Skype’s popularity worldwide.
But don’t give the keys to Andreessen. The guy can’t manage. Or finish. Netscape, Opsware, Ning. Now chairman of Skype? Yikes. Looks a thoroughbred. Finishes like a clydesdale.
You might want to rethink your analogy, but I get your point.
Clydesdales are massive, strong, have incredible stamina, not to mention sustained speed.
Thoroughbreds are young, fast and run out of steam quickly.
metered billing is on its death bed because of innovation and competition. They said all the great same things about Vonage? Once carriers go to a flat rate fee for mobile and home whose gonna need voip?
Headlines should read:
“Ebay agrees to sell most important company on internet”…. yeah right.
As someone in this space, this is a giant awakening.
Now that the IP is not separate from the business they can do a lot!
At least in my world, Skype, indeed is the most important company. I use it for most of ALL communications and sharing needs globally. I like their pricing policies and pro-business attitude. Go, Skype, Go!
So Skype is bigger than Facebook as things stand in terms of the number of users.
It’s not at all surprising that what is essentially just a (really good) phone company has more users than what is essentially just an (really good) online contact list & discussion board.
Skype carriers 8% of all international VoIP phone calls. That’s huge. If someone other then eBay bought it would have grown to over a billion dollars in revenue quite easily. I use Skype a lot, however I don’t use the Skype to Phone function for too many international calls, because of where I call. Skype rates are actually extremely expensive compared to other VoIP providers. If you have to make frequent international calls and you are calling European landlines then Skype is excellent (and cheap), but if you have call places like Romania or India – and on cell phones – then it’s a rip off. I hope they reduce their international rates. I would use their Skype to phone service a lot more.
sorry – the first part should have said “Skype carries 8% of all international VoIP phone calls. (not carriers)
so it’s so important the Ebay felt it’s imperative to get rid of it at a loss?
geez.. talk about stockpumping boneheads around here.
I use Skype in my iPod Touch and I can make and receive call to all Canada and U.S.A for less than 7$/month. Who needs an iPhone?
lol how about anytime you go outside your house wifi connection range?
Google should have bought skype! Things would have been so different and nice.
I would completely agree with this. Skype’s in nice and early on something that’ll come down the pipeline in the not too distant future, and just as importantly managed to create a customer base including a lot of mass market consumers. It’s a good position if they can hang in there until the perfect storm hits.
All the signs point to their being able to do it.