Moving out: the post-eBay checklist

1. Lose the eBay toolbar on Skype installation. Are users asking for it? 

2. Was there ever "an eBay company" text on Skype.com? Find it. Kill it.

3. Turn in your eBay badges.

4. Move out of Skype Inn in San Jose. Leave the eBay campus behind.

Tell us where you land so we can send a housewarming gift.

tags: skype, eBay, $eBay

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Skype sold, deal done. No surprises.

Skype blog post ("Great news – we’ve closed the deal with the new investors.") and news release. Investor group pays Skype $1.9 billion in cash, $125 million note for 70% of Skype. eBay buys a $50 million note from them. Investors include Silver Lake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Andreessen Horowitz Fund, and Joltid Limited. Skype now owns Joltid's peer-to-peer intellectual property, free and clear.

All the talent dedicated to replacing Joltid's p2p engine have been reassigned to other Skype engineering projects, like its forthcoming platform for third-parties.

This deal:

• Sold! The bullets, Phil Wolff, Skype Journal, November 6, 2009
• The rumored deal devalues Skype five percent, Skype Journal, November 6, 2009
• How much gold do you pay pirates?, Skype Journal, November 4, 2009
• eBay 2009q3 investor results (the Skype parts), Skype Journal, October 22, 2009
• Volpi's Skype Business Concept: SIP, social, lite, layoffs, Skype Journal, October 14, 2009
• Is Joltid's using the world's best patent troll law firm?, Skype Journal, September 20, 2009
• Lawyers are cheap, Skype Journal, September 17, 2009
• Labor Day thoughts on the 2009 Skype sale, Skype Journal, September 7, 2009
• Who will own Skype? Om picked up the phone, Skype Journal, September 3, 2009
• The Skype sale: Hot Buzz and No Response, Skype Journal, September 1, 2009
• Skype sale: 20 Things We Don't Know, Skype Journal, September 1, 2009
• The Sale as described by the Buyers, Skype Journal, September 1, 2009
• Skype CEO: "Today, Skype begins a new chapter", Skype Journal, September 1, 2009

The last deal:

• Who got what when Skype's investors sold to eBay? Phil Wolff, Skype Journal, June 7, 2007
• Sold to mwhitman, a member from San Francisco, Martin Geddes, Skype Journal, September 13, 2005

tags: skype, sale, spinout, spinoff, m&a, acquisition, ebay, investors, eBay, Silver Lake, silverlake, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, cppib, Andreessen Horowitz Fund, AndreessenHorowitz, Joltid, p2p, peer-to-peer, intellectual propertyproperty

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Sold! The bullets

1. The deal values Skype at $2.75 billion.
2. Index is out, freeing up 2.4% of the equity.
3. Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis are in.
4. They are contributing Joltid software for 10% of the company.
5. They are paying $83 million for 4% of the company (a discount, since that would value the $2.08 billion).
6. They are dropping the ugly lawsuits.
7. eBay will keep 30%, instead of 35%.
8. eBay still gets $1.9 billion cash.
9. Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and other investors will own 56%, down from 65%.
10. This values the Joltid IP at $275 million.

This begs the question: Why didn't Meg Whitman buy the Joltid IP when it was vastly cheaper in 2005? In 2005 the only market for the Global Index was to iffy music sharing services without a business model.

Congrats to all for this stage being over. So will Skype's next big liquidity event be an IPO or a merger? If M&A, with whom?

eBay's release:

Nov 6, 2009

eBay Inc.

eBay Inc. and Silver Lake Investor Group Settle Skype Litigation with Joltid Limited

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) today announced that the investor group led by Silver Lake, which had previously entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in Skype from the company, has reached a settlement agreement with Joltid Limited and Joost N.V. that gives Skype ownership over all software previously licensed from Joltid and ends all litigation currently pending against the investor group and eBay at the closing of the acquisition.

As part of the settlement agreement, Joltid and Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis will join the investor group, contributing Joltid software and making a significant capital investment in exchange for a 14 percent stake in Skype. As a result, Silver Lake and other investors including Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), will together hold 56 percent of Skype and eBay will retain 30 percent. As previously announced, eBay will receive approximately $1.9 billion in cash upon the completion of the sale and a note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million. The deal, which values Skype at $2.75 billion and is not subject to a financing condition, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009.

“Skype will be well positioned to move forward under new owners with ownership and control over its core technology,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “At the same time, eBay continues to retain a significant stake in Skype and will benefit from its continued growth. We look forward to closing the deal and focusing on growing our core ecommerce and payments businesses.”

Commenting on the agreement on behalf of the investor group, Silver Lake Managing Director Egon Durban said: "We are very pleased to have the litigation resolved. We remain confident in a great future for Skype, and we look forward to working with Niklas, Janus and the other investors as partners to help the company achieve its full potential."

The investor group will no longer include Index Ventures, which has withdrawn from participation. Commenting on its decision to withdraw, Danny Rimer of Index Ventures, said: "We are pleased that Skype will now be able to put litigation behind it, and we wish Josh Silverman, his team and the Skype investors well in continuing to grow a great business. Although Skype has the potential to be a great investment, the deal terms changed for Index such that it no longer matches our investment criteria and thus we have decided not to participate in the transaction."

tags: skype, ebay

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The rumored deal devalues Skype five percent

UPDATE: MORE TO COME.

The September 2009 deal valued Skype at $2.9 million. Post-deal, eBay would own 35%, Silverlake 50.6%, Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board 10.26%, Index Ventures Growth Fund 2.39%, Andreessen Horowitz 1.71%.

The new deal, as described by Kara Swisher, shuffles the percentages. Skype's founders get 10% of Skype in exchange for Joltid's intellectual property. (Does that mean the company? the software? permission to use the software? putting the software in the public domain FTW?). The founders can buy another 3% for $83 million cash. So 13% to the Z/F.

This means two things.

First, someone is giving 13% equity to Z/F. Beyond Index's 2.4%, where does the other 10.6% come from? Would the new investors devalue their stake? If eBay is paying off Z/F, they'll cut their ownership from 35% to 24.4%.

The rumored $83MM for 3% values Skype at $2.76 billion, discounted $157 million (5.4%) from the $2.92 billion when the deal was announced. Sweet for

No word if the investment is through Niklas Zennström's and Janus Friis's Atomico Ventures. Atomico's portfolio touches all around Skype without intruding. A maker of Bluetooth headsets, a Wi-Fi network that partnered with Skype, a phone speech-to-text service, a lifestreaming service, a payment service, a realtime conversation search engine, a live video streaming platform, an inbox relevance engine, a live video dating site. If nothing else, this shows Z/F understand Skype's adjacencies, markets Skype could enter or support.

tags: $skype, $ebay, Aliph, Fon, Heysan!, Jott, Kyte, Last.fm, mydeco, Seesmic, Technorati, TrialPay, Woome, Xobni

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How much gold do you pay pirates?

They came for fortune but were keelhauled and made to walk the plank. Now Skype's founders are back in a small fast ship, ready to sink her if they don't get paid. Do you fight to defend the S.S. Skype? Can you bribe the scoundrels and trust them to leave? Or do you bend, take them on as partners, and suffer them so you can put back to sea?

What do the two sides bring to the parley?

The Captain Z and Mister Friis wield barristers and silver. They sued Skype over the software license, swearing oaths were broken, blood is due, and Skype should be dry-docked until treasure is paid. They sued the new investment team, claiming keys to Joltid's treasure were smuggled from Joost's lockbox to key investors. And they lugged a treasure chest of cash and promises for outright ownership.

eBay and the Capitalists race to safer waters. Skype's quartermasters slaved for months to replace Skype's sails with sheets of their own making. Skype's lawyers dispute each scurvy claim and denounce them. It looks like prevailing winds for Skype's lawyers but fate, the courts, and codemongers are uncertain. 

Can eBay buy their absence cheaply this winter? Are you better off swashbuckling until a verdict comes next summer? Would you throw the Index Capitalists overboard, making room for the Dane and Swede at the Captain's Table? Could you ever turn your back once they were aboard?

The tale comes to this. Would you make a deal with the Devil himself to save your ship a battle? Or can you chart a course for open seas that leaves the pirates adrift in your wake?

Bonus Clue: Are the pirates on retainer in a grander scheme? Who benefits if Skype fails? Who would pay two billion dollars to shut Skype down?

tags: skype, joltid, joost, pirates, piracy, litigation, ebay, $ebay, $skype

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Pop quiz: What kind of Pirate are you?

BusinessWeek Book review: Piracy as Innovation Strategy: Can illegal copies provide inspiration? "Matt Mason, a former London deejay and the founder of RWD, a popular British magazine, argues for piracy as a business model rather than a threat. In his new book, The Pirate's Dilemma, he discusses the history of piracy--and how it drives innovation"

eBay 2009q3 investor results (the Skype parts)

eBay says Skype sale is on track for mid 2009q4 (November). eBay's cash will live offshore; no immediate plans for it.

Let's look at Skype's performance for July, August, and September this year.

First, Skypers called for 30.8 billion minutes this quarter.

Not only did Skypers call more, more were connected to the Skype network at the same time. Skype's peak dialtone figures crossed the 19 million mark earlier this quarter. Dialtone is a measure of network availability.  

While both Skype-to-Skype and Skype-to-PSTN activity grew, Skype's Freemium Rate (the ratio between the two) also rose to a new high. The freemium rate is the number of free minutes per paid minute. It indicates demand for the premium service and suggests the company's ability to convert free users to fee services. We'll watch to see if this trend continues.

Skype's customers paid $185.2 million this quarter. Revenue continued to grow outside the US but fell slightly in the US.

Skype's prices are stable despite pressure from competitors. Revenue per minute is $0.06, rising again for the second quarter in a row.

While Skype doesn't report active user accounts or abandoned accounts, Skype did say it picked up 40.3 million new users in the third quarter. That's 442,857 new users daily. That's a measure of the effectiveness of Skype's marketing, customer word of mouth, and network effects.

The smart Hudson Barton Real Users Estimate is now over 47 million users, approximating the number of people actively using Skype. My naïve estimate is roughly 114 million people use Skype in a given month.

 

eBay reported the effect of the Skype deal on their financials. 

They will sell 65% of Skype for about $1.8 billion in cash, most of it outside the United States. I assume they'll spend it on future M&A.

They expect Skype to contribute $100 million in profits in the first 45 days of the fourth quarter. After that they don't expect to see Skype post much profit since it will be paying "interest costs and amortization of intangibles."

I'm assuming the 2009 Annual report and 10K will include data for the last six weeks of Skype's activity before the sale. After that, Skype will be privately held and won't need to report financial information.

tags: ebay, skype, financials, charts, trends, stats, statistics, performance

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Volpi's Skype Business Concept: SIP, social, lite, layoffs

- buy skype, replace p2p with SIP (standard-based, open, can interwork with other VoIP systems – like the Cisco phones)

- use social graph to augment other socials via API or develop its own social

- replace heavy client with flash/html/java version – make it lightweight for embedded devices (mobile)

- clean up staff and cut costs while private

[Links are mine.] Exhibits 1-20 to Declaration of S. Dargitz In Support of PI – PUBLIC, page six, redacted.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

tags: skype, indexventures, skypeforsale, joost, litigation, lawsuit, preliminaryinjunction, injunction, dannyrimer, mikevolpi, volpi

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Doc courtesy of Tara Swisher.

Is Joltid's using the world's best patent troll law firm?

Ronald A. Katz may be one of the most successful patent trolls, bringing in about one billion dollars in license fees.

His counsel? Hennigan, Bennet & Dorman, a Los Angeles law firm. HBD is the same firm that filed for Joltid Limited in the US District court against Skype Technologies S.A.; Skype Inc, eBay Inc., Silver Lake Partners, Index Ventures Management, S.A., Mike Volpi, Andreessen Horowitz LLC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and investors to be named later 16 September 2009.

Roderick G. Dorman is the partner heading up HBD’s Patent and Technology department. Lawrence M. Hadley has experience with "federal copyright litigation involving peer-to-peer software and technology." Ms. Mieke K. Malmberg appears to have had hands-on with Katz's interactive call processing pursuits.

"HBD represented Sharman in the post-Napster copyright wars over peer-to-peer file sharing brought by the recording and motion picture industries against Sharman."
Key Victories, Patent and Technology, MGM v. Grokster.

From HBD's patent litigation practice:

The vast majority of patent rights are not determined through litigation, but are instead resolved privately through patent licensing.  We have assisted our clients to enforce their patents and patent portfolios through licensing programs, in which the patent is offered for license on reasonable terms to all companies in a particular industry or a group of similarly-situated companies.  Such licensing programs involve substantial analysis of the patent and its claims before initiating such a program and involve engaging potential licensees in face-to-face meetings to discuss the technical and legal issues involved in a company’s choice between litigation and licensing.

Sound familiar?

Great directors say "casting is everything." Seems like Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis found the right team for the job.

tags: skype, ebay, joltid, niklaszennstrom, janusfriis, litigation, suit, patent, patenttroll, troll, dorman, hadley, malmberg, volip

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Lawyers are cheap

With billions at stake (dollars, minutes, users) you can see why a few Skype co-founders and Joltid owners are suing Skype. Again.

If they can spoil the deal for a few million in legal fees, maybe eBay puts Skype back on the market. Clint Boulton gets it.

tags: skype

Call me at +1-510-316-9773, Skype me, follow @skypejournal and @Phil Wolff.
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Labor Day thoughts on the 2009 Skype sale

1. eBay's post-Whitman management gets credit for doing something right. Staffing the right executives in 2008. Letting the new leaders turn the startup into a company worth selling. Sending the right signals to potential buyers. Getting the deal done. Not rewarding the founders for their Joltid extortion. Nice way to turn things around!
2. Silverlake controls everything. With Silverlake Partners owning more than 50% of Skype Ltd., it's their call when to float Skype stock in the future or sell Skype to another company.
3. Skype will fund its own expansion. Don't expect cash infusions for acquisitions, infrastructure, labor intensive services, or advertising. Skype has been producing more than $10 million monthly in free cash. Skype's roadmap will chew up all of it just for internal growth and to create cash reserves.
4. Skype will keep its overall direction and product strategy. Skype doesn't need to rethink its business anytime soon.   
5. The SEC pipeline of data will be gone. eBay's 2009q3 10Q report (coming this October) may be the last detailed reporting of Skype operations and finances ever. Privately owned companies need not report performance unless they float stock.

Five product changes I expect from Skype in the next year.

1. Better P2P. Skype will first deploy a simple functional replacement of the Joltid P2P engine. They will improve it, building in six years' of real world experience Joltid never had. Skype should be able to make its P2P network more resistant to Internet outages and blocking, more resilient in the face of damage to the peer fabric, more efficient in finding and routing connections between users.
2. Better video. Perhaps their own video codecs. Higher resolution video as cameras and PCs catch up. Multiparty video calls. Better use of processors, including video digital signal processors. 
3. Skype Inside. A clearer platforming strategy, building on their experience with Skype Lite (clouds of Skype supporting thin, mobile Skype clients) and Skype For Asterisk (adding UI-free Skype clients to someone else's servers). Think "Communications as a Platform," where you can build Skype messaging, presence, and calling into mobile, desktop, and server applications.
4. ID anguish. Skype has an immature user identity model, left over from instant messaging services in the mid 1990s. We'll see greater conflict between Skype's two identity systems. Skype's consumer and corporate Skype names (user IDs) aren't interchangeable although their users and markets overlap.
5. A little less anti-social. Skype's great at talking with people you know. It does nothing to help me find interesting, entertaining, or useful strangers. Almost nothing (do birthdays count?) at helping me curate my friends and cultivate my relationships over time. Skype backed off from supporting its Skypecasts service (hosted calls with moderated Skype chat backchannels) and Skype public chats (web links to group text chats). Skype will research how to help people do more during a conversation (collaboration) and how to add more of the value found in other social media (discovery, ridiculously easy group formation, social gestures, non-conversational messaging).

tags: skype, silverlake

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photo credit: underlying photo CC BY 2.0 by Casey Serin.

Who will own Skype? Om picked up the phone

It looks a little like this:

Om Malik estimates:

• Silverlake Partners: $1.48 billion.
• Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board: $300 million.
• Index Ventures Growth Fund: $70 million.
• Andreessen Horowitz: $50 million or a sixth of Marc Andreessen’s new $300 million fund.

So that almost answers #5 of our twenty spinoff questions "How is the investor pool structured and divided? Which funds and people own what?" We don't know if they'll all get the same stock, seats on the board, if anyone (banks, executives, employees) get small slivers of Skype Ltd. We also don't know who invested in Silverlake's fund.

tags: skype, investors, ebay, silverlake, cpp, indexventures, andreessenhorowitz

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The Skype sale: Hot Buzz and No Response

As you'd expect, there's lots of buzz about eBay selling Skype at the bargain price of $1.9 Billion and change. First the blogosphere shows a healthy four-fold spike in commentary...

And the twittersverse gets busy for a few hours... 

But the news hasn't affected newbies downloading Skype (the cumulative blue line) or users connecting to the Skype cloud (the red line).

It doesn't appear to have affected eBay stock. Presumably the news had been discounted earlier this year with repeated mentions of an IPO.

tags: skype, ebay, spinout, spinoff, charts, statistics, trends

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Skype sale: 20 Things We Don't Know

Things we don't know about the sale of Skype.

1. Who are the unnamed investors providing the bulk of the $1.9 billion in cash? [Update: We know a little more.]
2. Are Skype's founders among the new investors?
3. Which large competitors joined the investor pool? Big telecom companies? Cisco? Microsoft? Google? [Update: We don't know who put money into Silverlake Partners]
4. Any Recovery.gov funds find their way into the investor pool?
5. How is the investor pool structured and divided? Which funds and people own what? [Update: "The CPPIB, which manages retirement funds for Canadians, will put up $300-million in cash for a 15 per cent stake, The Globe and Mail has learned." That's 15% of the 65%.]
6. Who will sit on Skype's board? Who will chair?
7. Will Marc Andreessen remain on eBay's board? Is there a conflict of interest?
8. What is the timing? "The transaction, which is not subject to a financing condition, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009." What are the steps the parties must complete? In what order? By when?
9. Do the investors require Skype resolve the Joltid lawsuit before closing?
10. What bank is handling the transaction? 
11. What assets are included in the sale? What intellectual property?
12. Are there any regulatory hurdles?
13. What secures the "note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million"?
14. Will employees get a taste of the spinoff capital? Bonuses?
15. Will all employees stay or will some return to eBay?
16. Why is eBay holding 35%? To reconcile asking and selling price? via @aswath
17. Can eBay still IPO its 35% post-sale shares?[Update: Maybe, but the other investors and the company management would have to agree.]
18. What is the investors' exit strategy? IPO? @andyabramson. [Update: Maybe, but eBay and the company management would have to agree.]
19. Will the official headquarters remain in Luxembourg? [Update: Yes.]
20. If eBay investors are as angry as Om Malik says they should be, can they block the sale? (Shades of Yahoo!-Microsoft)

tags: skype, ebay, ipo

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The Sale as described by the Buyers

Their news release of eBay's selling Skype includes the usual hyperbole about the company, investors, management. In the last paragraph:

J.P. Morgan, Barclays and RBC Capital Markets advised Silver Lake and its investor group and have committed to provide the financing necessary to complete the transaction.

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, Bird & Bird LLP and Michael Silverleaf QC are acting as legal advisors to the investor group.

Goldman Sachs is providing financial advice to eBay on the transaction. Dewey& LeBoeuf LLP is acting as legal advisor to eBay.

While Silver Lake is a lead investor, they are bundling money from other companies, which in turn bundle money from other funds. This is not an exhaustive list of funding sources.

The release:

Investor Group to Acquire Majority Stake in Skype

Tue Sep 1, 2009 9:55am EDT

Transaction values Skype at $2.75 billion

MENLO PARK, Calif., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Skype Technologies S.A. and an investor group led by Silver Lake announced today that they have signed a definitive agreement in which the investor group will purchase a 65 percent interest in Skype Technologies from eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) for approximately $1.9 billion in cash, in a transaction valuing Skype Technologies at $2.75 billion. eBay will retain the remaining 35 percent equity interest in Skype.

Skype Technologies is the manufacturer and developer of Skype software, which is used by millions of individuals and businesses to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. The software also allows users to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobile telephone lines.

The purchasers are a strong consortium with complementary skill sets. Members of the investor group are Silver Lake, the leader in private investment in technology, technology-enabled and related growth industries; Index Ventures,a premier global venture capital firm; Andreessen Horowitz, a recently launched venture capital firm led by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz; and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

"We are extremely fortunate to have such a talented and seasoned group invest in our company," said Josh Silverman, CEO of Skype. "This is a group of investors and industry veterans that have a strong track record of taking the technology companies they own to the next level. With their know-how helping to guide our vision, Skype is poised to enter the next phase of its growth and development."

"Skype Technologies is an innovative, next-generation technology company that has changed how people and businesses communicate with each other," said Egon Durban, Managing Director at Silver Lake. "This transaction benefits all parties involved and will allow Skype the opportunity to accelerate the growth of its business by harnessing the deep technological and company development expertise that resides within the investor group. Josh Silverman has done a strong job leading the company and we look forward to working with Josh and his team to grow the Skype franchise."

"Skype is one of Europe's greatest startup success stories. In 2004, we recognized its potential as a global telecommunications leader and we've been captivated by the business since we first invested," said Mike Volpi, Index Partner. "eBay has continued to foster Skype's growth as the Internet voice and video communication leader. We are delighted to join this all-star team of professionals and investors in the next chapter of the Skype adventure."

"Skype is the archetypal Internet phenomenon: a breakthrough technology combining with enormously powerful network effects to revolutionize a gigantic industry," said Marc Andreessen, Co-Founder of Andreessen Horowitz. "With this acquisition, we will work with the Skype team and eBay to build the company into a core Internet franchise at huge scale."

"This acquisition represents an opportunity to acquire a leader in the rapidly growing internet telecommunications market and one of the most strategically valuable internet brands in the marketplace. We look forward to working with our partners to help grow Skype in this accelerating industry," said Mark Wiseman, Senior Vice-President, Private Investments with the CPP Investment Board.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the talented players that make up this investment group will enable strong growth of Skype in the years to come,"said John Donahoe, CEO of eBay. "The management team at Skype is one of the most innovative in the industry, and their talent and innovation will be enhanced through this partnership. For eBay, this transaction allows us to unlock both immediate and long-term value while benefiting from talented partners to help Skype accelerate its growth momentum."

Skype Technologies generated revenues of $551 million in 2008, a 44% increase compared to 2007. Registered Skype users reached 405 million by the end of2008, a 47% increase from 2007. eBay has projected Skype Technologies revenues to exceed $1 billion in 2011. Skype Technologies recently introduced a popular Skype iPhone app as well as partnerships with mobile carriers such as Nokia and Hutchison. The company is attracting thousands of new users daily.

J.P. Morgan, Barclays and RBC Capital Markets advised Silver Lake and its investor group and have committed to provide the financing necessary to complete the transaction.

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, Bird & Bird LLP and Michael Silverleaf QC are acting as legal advisors to the investor group.

Goldman Sachs is providing financial advice to eBay on the transaction. Dewey& LeBoeuf LLP is acting as legal advisor to eBay.

About Skype Technologies

Skype is software that enables the world's conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people everywhere also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles.

About Silver Lake

Silver Lake is the leading investment firm focused on large scale investments in technology, technology-enabled, and related growth industries. SilverLake's mission is to function as a value-added partner to the management teams of the world's leading technology franchises. Its portfolio includes or has included technology industry leaders such as Ameritrade, Avago, Business Objects, Gartner, Instinet, Intelsat, NASDAQ, Sabre / Travelocity, SeagateTechnology, SunGard Data Systems and UGS. For more information, please visit www.silverlake.com.

About Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB)

The CPP Investment Board is a professional investment management organization that invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan to pay current benefits on behalf of 17 million Canadian contributors and beneficiaries. In order to build a diversified portfolio of CPP assets, the CPP Investment Board invests in public equities, private equities, real estate, inflation-linked bonds, infrastructure and fixed income instruments. Headquartered in Toronto, with offices in London and Hong Kong, the CPP Investment Board is governed and managed independently of the Canada Pension Plan and at arm's length from governments. At June 30, 2009, the CPP Fund totaled C$116.6 billion. For more information about the CPP Investment Board, please visit www.cppib.ca.

About Index Ventures

Index Ventures is a leading global venture capital firm active in technology,biotech and clean tech venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology and Life Science sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders. The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses on investments from seed through growth stage companies. Index's growth portfolio includes Adconion, RPX, Betfair and Trialpay. Exits of note include Skype (eBay), MySQL(the world's most popular open source database acquired by Sun), and Last.fm (the world's largest social music platform, recently acquired by CBS). For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com.

About Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz was established in June 2009 by entrepreneurs and engineers Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, based on their vision for a new, modern VC firm designed to support today's entrepreneurs. Andreessen and Horowitz have a track record of investing in, building and scaling highly successful businesses. Andreessen Horowitz is based on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California.

About eBay

Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, empowering them to explore new opportunities and innovate together. eBay does this by providing the Internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications. Since its inception, eBay has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, StubHub, Shopping.com, and others.eBay is headquartered in San Jose, California. For more information, please visit www.eBay.com.

tags: skype, ebay, indexventures, andreessenhorowitz

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Skype CEO: "Today, Skype begins a new chapter"

Josh Silverman welcomes the spinoff in a blog post.

Today, Skype begins a new chapter. We’re spinning off from eBay to become an independent company once again. This is very exciting news for all of us here at Skype, and I want to give all of you a brief overview of what’s happening.

A small group of venture capital funds have agreed with eBay to acquire a majority stake in Skype. The group is led by Silver Lake Partners, joined by Index and Andreessen Horowitz Ventures. You may recognize some names – for example Danny Rimer and Mike Volpi (both at Index Ventures) who were some of the earliest Board members and supporters of Skype.

The new investors will buy approximately 65% of Skype, with eBay continuing to own 35%, in a deal valuing Skype at $2.75 billion US. It means we’re back to being a fully independent company again, but with a new group of owners who believe passionately in our mission and in the ability of our team to deliver on it. I can’t wait.

tags: skype, joshsilverman, silverlake, index, andreessenhorowitz, dannyrimer, mikevolpi

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