14 DAY TRIAL // Skype’s intentions to go public have been revealed earlier today. While it will still be a while before Skype shares are traded publicly, the registration filing revealed some interesting tidbits about the company and especially about the murky eBay sale. Before the online auctions company sold Skype, it went through a lengthy legal battle with the VoIP service’s founders over the use of the P2P technology powering it, which was still owned by the two founders.
The filing has now revealed how much the lawsuit ended up costing Skype, $343.8 million in settlement and other expenses, as Business Insider uncovered. Most of the money went towards acquiring the P2P technology, Global Index, from Joltid, a company owned by Skype’s two founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis.
Joltid got about 10 percent of the, then newly formed Skype, valued at $224 million, and $85 million in cash. The company also had the right to buy more Skype stock at a later date. As was reported at the time, Joltid also bought Skype shares worth $80 million.
But the two founders had other advantages as well. Skype provided Atomico, a venture fund created by the two, with $10 million. It also invested $6 million in the recently launched music streaming service Rdio. Skype agreed to promote the revamped Joost video service, as well. Joost is another company owned by Zennström and Friis.
Skype says in the filing that the entire costs associated with the deal add up to $343.8 million. The figure is not set in stone since it relies heavily on Skype stock price and the company’s valuation.
Basically, the two founders had eBay in a position where it had to do what they said. And they used this position to the best of their abilities, getting Skype to fund many of their other ventures and also netting them a nice sum in cash. This while they also got a sizeable share of the independent Skype, of which eBay still owns 30 percent.