Skype may be redeemed by the founders

The European founders of the most famous VoIP service, Skype, are trying to become its rightful owners by buying it from eBay. Nicholas Zenstrom and Janus Fries have reportedly signed contracts with several private firms and are also raising their own funds to make an offer to Skype’s current owner, eBay.

Skype was sold in 2005 for $ 3.1 billion. After that, Swedish-born Zenstrom and Danish-born Fries formed Atomico and began supporting the London-based video service Joost.

Compared to 2005, the number of registered Skype users has increased from 53 to 405 million. System revenue in the last quarter of 2008 was $ 145 million. In addition, low prices for international calls helped the service to occupy 8% of the total international communication market.

However, it seems that eBay is not interested in supporting and developing Skype. EBay’s chief executive, John Donahoe, has repeatedly said Skype could be sold.

Currently, Nicholas Zenstrom and Janus Fries are not commenting on rumors of an upcoming over $ 2 billion deal. As such, it is highly doubtful that they are actually negotiating with eBay. EBay spokesman Alan Marks also said the company would not comment on the matter.

In addition, there are rumors that eBay is considering an offer to sell Skype to a large company. In 2005, Google was interested in buying Skype, but the company has since created its own Google Voice service. Thus, Google is most likely not a potential Skype buyer.

It should be noted that by selling Skype, eBay would solve several financial problems. At the end of 2008, eBay reported revenues of $ 3.19 billion. 2.8 billion located overseas, the company, when investing in the US, will have to pay heavy taxes. Thus, Skype is not as profitable for eBay as it seems.