eBay to sell Skype
Online auction giant eBay will sell Skype, a VoIP communications service, to an investment group according to New York Times.
It’s said that a group of private investors would likely to include Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firl headed by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.
Other venture capital firms would likely be included including London-based Index Ventures which is already an early investor in Skype. Silver Lake Partners were also involved in the arrangement although values were not disclosed.
The New York Times also noted that eBay said it wants $2 Billion for Skype.
Skype was purchased by the auction giant in 2005 for about $3.1 billion including payouts to Niklas Zennstrom of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark, who founded the company in 2003.
eBay previously planned Initial Public Offering (IPO) offering for Skype next year. They also negotiated with Google but Google walked away from the deal.
Skype’s user-base has increased from 53 million to 405 million. The service allows users to call each other for free and call landlines and mobile phones at very low rates.
Voice Over IP business is booming as most companies are looking for ways to decrease communications cost and VoIP make it possible for them. Individual users also resort to VoIP when calling their families abroad because of low charges.
