Skype Co-Founders Raise $165 Million For New Fund—Short Of Initial Goal

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Skype Co-Founders Raise $165 Million For New Fund—Short Of Initial Goal

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Skype cofounders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis have raised $165 million for their second venture fund which will mainly back European high growth tech startups. Zennström and Friis—who also started Kazaa and Joost—had initially aimed to raise $266 million for the fund a year ago but downplay the shortfall telling the Financial Times, “when we started we had a flexible number” and “we think we have exactly the right amount of money.”

Zennström and Friis started their investment comapny—Atomico Ventures—four years ago. Over the last year, it has backed several startups, including mobile gaming firm Zattikka, music service Rdio, and social games site Playfire.

In its announcement, Atomico loosely lays out the criteria for how it will use the new cash. Zennström: “We will seek to invest in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building exceptional businesses. We will target companies that we believe have the potential to generate significant growth, transform their industries, and deliver strong returns.”

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Joseph Tartakoff

@josephtartakoff Mar 21, 2010 11:05 PM ET

Photo: Corbis

Posted In: Money, M&A & Venture Capital, Venture Capital

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5w30

Cablevision has been doing this for years in the NY area - high school sports. It's just they they've repackaged what used to be on local access channels, etc. FiOS is late to the game, but of course having competition - just like in sports - is the American way. Nice to know that Verizon has shills, too.

Rich

It's nice to see Cablevision entering the high school sports scene, but just so you're aware, CV is not the only game in town. Verizon's FiOS1 channels have been covering HS sports for a while and have plans to do even more. FiOS1 channels on Long Island, in New Jersey and the Metro D.C. areas are already running a full schedule of HS and College sports ranging from football to volleyball, soccer, lacrosse and that's just the beginning. We're offering key HS games of the week, many live events and we're partnering with the Star Ledger in covering New Jersey HS Football championship games LIVE. In addition, we're broadcasting many collegiate sporting events featuring teams from Princeton, Rutgers, Hofstra, Georgetown and more. There's high interest in local sports and we're glad to be at the head of the game.