eBay could be looking to sell Skype, the popular VoIP phone service it owns, and Skype’s founders are reported to be prepping a bid! Going once, going twice…
Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis sold the company to eBay for $2.6bn (£1.7bn) back in 2005, but it appears eBay is already looking to give them back control.
The New York Times reports the Skype founders are scouting for venture capital funding to buy the VoIP firm back from eBay. Analysts believe that eBay is looking for a price of around $1.7bn (£1.1bn), despite the huge growth in Skype users since 2005 (up from 53m to a whopping 405m).
Skype isn’t the only asset on the auctioneer’s block. eBay looks like it’s selling off several non-core services. It’s just sold social media site StumbleUpon back to its founders after purchasing it for $75m (£50m) two years ago, so an attempt to spin off Skype as well would come as no surprise.
The only question is, will Skype’s founders be the highest bidders, or will there be a new owner for the world’s most popular VoIP service?
