Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Niklas Zennström

Niklas Zennstrom Planning To Launch A Free Wireless Service Called FreedomPop

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 04:36:27 +0000

FreedomPop is an upcoming startup that was founded by Niklas Zennstrom. Zennstrom is best known for co-founding services like KaZaa, Skype, and Rdio. FreedomPop i sa company that plans to offer free basic wireless services for laptops and smartphones. FreedomPop is testing their service with a selected group of U.S. users and they plan to launch next year.

Customers would be able to use a certain amount of wireless web access for free. Additional services would come at a cost. FreedomPop expects that about 10% of their user base would pay the fees associated with the premium services.

Zennstrom has a partnership in place with LightSquared Inc. FreedomPop wants to make access to the Internet over wireless free, which would shake up the telecommunications industry as a whole. In a way, Zennstrom is directly competing with companies like Boingo.

FreedomPop may offer the service through a dongle which may be connected to smartphones or laptops. The company would distribute the devices through retailers, which may require a deposit of $49. When the service is cancelled and the hardware is returned, the $49 would be returned.

[BusinessWeek]

Rdio Introduces Streaming Full Songs Without Ads

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:28:41 +0000

Rdio is an ad-free music subscription service that is available as a website and has iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone applications.

Rdio was created by Skype/KaZaa founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. Rdio is now available for free without hearing a single ad. A meter will appear at the top of Rdio that shows you how much free music you have each month. You can create an account with your Facebook account. No application downloads or credit cards are required.

[Rdio Blog]

Microsoft To Acquire Skype For Between $7-$8 Billion

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 10 May 2011 06:16:30 +0000

A few days ago I wrote about how Google and Facebook were in talks to form a partnership with Skype. Looks like those talks have ended because Microsoft is going to acquire Skype Technologies Inc. for between $7-$8 billion according to several sources. Including the long-term debt associated with Skype, the deal is worth about $8.5 billion. This would be Microsoft’s largest acquisition since Yahoo! turned down the $48 billion offer.

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis founded Skype in 2003. eBay acquired the company in 2005 for $2.6 billion in cash and stock. eBay was going to integrate the service into their auction website, but that plan never happened. So eBay sold off 70% of Skype in 2009 to Silver Lake Partners, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Last year, Skype’s revenues were $860 million and operating profits was $264 million. The company reported $686 million in long-term debt as of the end of this year. Skype uses VoIP technology for people to make phone calls to each other on-the-cheap.

Skype can also conduct video calls, which may be a reason why Microsoft is interested in the company. Skype could allow Microsoft to integrate video chatting into the Windows Phone 7 operating system to compete with the FaceTime feature available on the iPad 2, iPod Touch, and iPhone 4. Skype filed documents to go public last August, but changed the plan after they hired Tony Bates as CEO.

[WSJ]

Angry Birds Maker Rovio Raises $42 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:35:46 +0000

Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds, has raised $42 million in Series A funding from Accel Partners and Atomico. Atomico co-founder Niklas Zennström will be joining the board of directors at Rovio. Angry Birds was one of the most download games on the Apple App Store and on Google Android. After that investors were begging to put money in their company.

Rovio plans on using the funding to increase their international reach, media production, partnerships, and merchandising. Rovio recently hit over 2 million Angry Birds plush toy sales recently as well. Rovio has about 50 employees based in their Espoo, Finland offices.

[GigaOM]

Janus Friis with Niklas Zennstrom’s Rdio Service Officially Launches

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:11:50 +0000

The entrepreneur dynamic duo Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström has officially launched the Rdio service to the public. You may remember Janus and Niklas as the two who started KaZaa, Skype, and Joost. Up until today, you needed an invitation to use the service. The music streaming service starts at a cost of $4.99 per month. However the service is currently open to users in the U.S. and Canada.

There is a 3 day trial that is advertisement free too. The web only version of the service is $4.99, but if you want to use the service on a mobile device — it costs $9.99 per month. Rdio has about 7 million songs in their database after working with several independent labels. Rdio has agreements in place with IODA, Iris, INgrooves, Finetunes, and The Orchard.

[TechCrunch]

Skype Founders Taking On Pandora Through Rdio Music Service

Amit Chowdhry — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:40:50 +0000

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström are two of the most popular entrepreneurs as they started KaZaa, Skype, and Joost. Their latest venture is a Twitter-like digital music service called Rdio.com.

Rdio offers users access to 5 million tracks through all the major labels to people in the U.S. and Canada. Rdio is available for free for three days and then charges $5 for web only services or $10 for web plus mobile. Rdio competes directly with Rhapsody and Napster. Rdio will show users what their friends are listening to and what they like through real-time feeds. The service is currently invite-only.

[Wired]

Skype Founders’ VC Company Atomico Raises $165 Million

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:49:37 +0000

Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype started a company called Atomico Ventures in 2006. The VC firm was started to invest in early-stage European technology companies. Atomico has just announced that they have raised $165 million in funding.

“The type of companies we are looking at are consumer-facing and also small business… that do not need to build up sales forces around the world to scale and grow,” stated Zennström in an interview with the Financial Times. “These are the kinds of companies like Skype, Google and Facebook who, if the business model is really working, they can get large revenues without having to go through too many financing rounds.” [Financial Times]

Skype Lawsuit Gets Resolved, Index Ventures Booted Out Of Sale

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:56:15 +0000

As you may remember, two months ago eBay was planning to spin Skype into an independent company. The buyers who would take control of Skype from eBay included Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Index Ventures, and Silver Lake. However the founders of Skype interrupted the sale by claiming intellectual property infringement on the VoIP technology. The original founders of Skype started a company called Joltid. And Joltid said that they were suing eBay.

The lawsuit has now been settled. eBay will be selling a majority ownership of Skype to the aforementioned investors for $2 billion. Joltid will be licensing the technology to the new Skype buyers. Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis will get 14% ownership in Skype as a result. Both Friis and Zennstrom will also make a “significant’ investment in Skype too. eBay will retain 30% in Skype and the rest of the investor group will get 56%.

Friis and Zennstrom also filed a lawsuit back in September against former Joost CEO Mike Volpi. Friis and Zennstrom founded Joost several years ago and sued Volpi because of breach of fiduciary duty. Volpi is currently a partner with Index Ventures which is one of the companies buying Skype. As a result, Index Ventures is no longer one of the buyers in Skype. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of this year.

Joost and Joltid Limited Files A Lawsuit Against Mike Volpi and Index Ventures Shortly After Skype Sues eBay

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:36:57 +0000

At the beginning of the month, eBay announced that they would be selling Skype to several buyers. The buyers included Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. That sale has been interrupted not by Kanye West, but by the founders of Joost and Skype.

The founders of Joost and Skype started another company called Joltid. Joltid is suing eBay on the basis that Skype is infringing on their technology at least $100,000 times per day. eBay denies the allegations. But Joltid co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom says that their company holds the intellectual property rights to VoIP applications including Skype. Joltid filed the lawsuit against eBay two weeks after the announcement was made that Skype would be sold to the aforementioned buyers.

Today another lawsuit was filed by the Joltid, Skype, and Joost co-founders. Zennstrom and Friis filed a lawsuit against former Joost CEO and Chairman Mike Volpi along with venture capital firm Index Ventures. The lawsuit states that there has been a breach of “fiduciary duty against Volpi, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against Index, interference with prospective business advantage, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract against Index, breach of confidence, and civil conspiracy.” Volpi had recently quit Joost to join Index Ventures back in July.

Between Index being sued and wanting to buy Skype from eBay, that company is up the creek made out of you know what with no oar. I also think it is safe to say that Friis and and Zennström don’t want to see Index own the company that they built and sold to eBay. Who knows? Maybe the purchase of Skype might be too much of a headache and might the transaction may be aborted. But all the buyers involved have already come to far and won’t go down without a fight.

Group Of Investors Considering Bidding On Skype

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:01:56 +0000

Several investors are considering making a bid on Skype, the voice-over-IP service owned by eBay. eBay bought out Skype for about $4.1 billion in September 2005 but failed to find a real way to integrate the service into their system.

Some of the investors considering making a bid includes Andreesen Horowitz and Index Ventures. Index Ventures was one of the early investors in Skype. There is also rumored to be another multi-billion dollar private equity company involved according to TechCrunch.

At one point eBay was considering having Skype have their own IPO. It is unclear whether the current Skype CEO Josh Silverman will still be involved if an acquisition does take place. While Silverman was running Skype, the company grew to $551 million in revenue this year. By 2011, eBay expects Skype to hit about $1 billion in revenues.

Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis both started Skype together shortly after KaZaa. If Skype gets acquired, then the private equity companies and investors would probably work towards an IPO.