Ebay’s acquisition of skype has been a disaster for ebay so far. Now there are reports that Skype’s founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis may be in talks with Ebay to buy skype back.
SAN FRANCISCO — The European duo who created Skype and sold it to eBay for billions may have another trick up their sleeve: buying it back.
Niklas Zennstrom, left, and Janus Friis, founders of Skype, are said to be raising money to buy the Internet phone service back.
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, have approached several private equity firms and are pooling their own substantial resources to make a bid for the Internet calling service, say several people with knowledge of their plans.
The two men sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, and later received bonus payouts that increased the final price to $3.1 billion. Since then, Mr. Zennstrom, a native of Sweden, and Mr. Friis, of Denmark, have created the venture capital firm Atomico and backed the online video service Joost, both based in London.
Skype has more than 405 million registered users, up from 53 million when eBay bought it, and the service had $145 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2008. Calls are free between Skype users, and rates are a few pennies a minute for international calls to non-Skype users; the low cost has helped the company gain 8 percent of the world’s international calling minutes, according to TeleGeography, a market research firm.
Skype also currently has one of the most popular applications for Apple’s iPhone, and has said it is developing software for the BlackBerry, which is expected in May.
EBay has admitted, however, that Skype has few synergies with its core e-commerce and payments businesses. In addition, John J. Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, has repeatedly signaled his willingness to sell Skype for the right price.
Skype is a case study of how innovation stagnates after acquisiton by a wrong company. It can happen even when the match is right if the acquisition happens too early. I believe skype still has a huge potential to disrupt the telecommunications industry. Can it get its mojo back if the founders succeed in their attempt to buy it back? Do the founders have what it takes to manage the company at this stage in its evolution? It will be interesting to watch the story as it develops.