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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Glenn

Christoper, DRM has indeed hampered digital growth. Amazon.com—nor eMusic, for that matter—would not have entered the music download arena if it was to sell downloads with DRM. Apple has indeed won with DRM, but labels and consumers will be better served with greater competition in the download space. That competition cannot exist if files are shackled with DRM. With DRM, the industry would be left to look to iTunes as the single generator of growth.

Christopher Levy

It's kind of sad that all of these retailers are having to take these drastic moves to sell content to the iPod all because Apple won't license their DRM technology. The music industry and Apple created this break .

Delivering unencrypted music won't solve this dilemma. Apple still wins using DRM at the end of the day. DRM is not the problem. Consumers at large do not care about DRM. They care about catalog and pricing and ease of use.

Apple not licensing FairPlay is the problem.

The press love the term "DRM-Free" because its emotional and drives page views. What it doesn't do is drive revenue or industry growth.

Christopher Levy
clevy@buydrm.com
www.buydrm.com