Ebay Sells Part of Skype for $1.9 billion

by Truemorist | September 1, 2009 at 09:25 am

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Ebay sold 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion to a bunch of private investors, including Andreesen Horowitz and Index Ventures. Hopefully they won't mess with my ability to make really cheap calls on my crappy headset.

This definitely means that an IPO for Skype is dead. Also dead is Skype's potential as a cash cow for Ebay, which is pretty much just getting its money back so far.

Actually, Index Ventures is one of SKype's initial investors. So Index Ventures kind of paid for Skype twice.

However, at an implied valuation of $3.1bn for the whole company, the deal puts an overall price tag on Skype that is roughly the same as the amount Ebay eventually paid for it, after reducing the earn-out payment made to the company’s founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.