Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis; it was acquired by eBay in 2005, but eBay couldn’t find a way to integrate it into its business and subsequently sold it to an investment group led by Silver Lake in 2009.
The $8.5 billion deal with Microsoft is a very profitable exit for that group of investors, which includes Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board — they paid $2.75 billion for Skype.
As for the future of Skype and the challenges Microsoft faces, the first and foremost will be the fact that Skype is not yet profitable.
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