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Niklas Zennström (born February 16, 1966) is a Swedish entrepreneur.

In 2001 Zennström, along with Janus Friis, co-founded Kazaa Media Desktop (once capitalized as "KaZaA", but now usually written "Kazaa") the peer-to-peer file sharing application. In 2002, Zennström and Friis created Skype the peer-to-peer Internet telephony network. He is also the co-founder (again with Friis) of Joost, an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the web set up in 2006 and Atomico, a venture capital company.

Zennström has dual degrees in Business Administration (BSc) and Engineering Physics (MSc) from Uppsala University in Sweden. He spent his final year at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

Contents 1 Career 2 Awards 3 References 4 Interviews 5 External links

[edit] Career

Zennström started his professional career at the European telecom operator Tele2. He went on to serve in various business development roles including launching and being responsible for European Internet Service Provider business get2net and as CEO of the everyday.com portal. Later, he co-founded and served as CEO of Kazaa. Kazaa has been highly criticised for the spyware/malware bundled with it, and has also faced lawsuits from the recording industry relating to copyright violations.

After Kazaa was sold to Sharman Networks, Zennström founded and served as CEO at Joltid, a software company developing and marketing peer-to-peer solutions and peer-to-peer traffic optimization technologies to companies. Zennström also co-founded Altnet, the world’s first secure peer-to-peer network promoting commercial content to consumers which integrates promotion, distribution, and payment of digital content.

Zennström and Friis’ most notable success to date is Skype, a VoIP telephony company based on peer-to-peer principles. On October 14, 2005, Skype was acquired by eBay for €2.1 billion ($2.6 billion USD) plus the potential to earn further performance-based bonuses up to €1.2bn. Zennström was CEO from Skype's inception until September 2007.

Later Zennström and Friis went on to develop Joost (where Zennström is co-chairman), an online video distribution service, launched in 2007.

Currently Zennström and Janus Friis run Atomico Ventures which is a venture capital fund based in London. Through Atomico Ventures they have funded over 15 new startups including Last.fm, Fon, Xobni,Technorati, Heysan and Woome. Zennström is also one of the Young Global Leaders, World Economic Forum.

With his wife Catherine, he founded Zennström Philanthropies to direct their charitable giving in the fields of climate change, human rights and social entrepreneurship. In Time Magazine's 2006 list of 100 most influential people Zennström was mentioned.

[edit] Awards

Zennström has won a number of industry awards including Business Leader of the Year 2006 (European Voice); Innovation in Computing and Communications 2006 (Economist Innovation Awards) and he and Friis were the co-recipients of the 2006 Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award, an award given to business and individuals who have used information technology in a way that changed an industry or society as a whole. He was included on Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People List 2006^[1].

[edit] References

[edit] Interviews

• Director magazine (November 2007) [1]
• The Sunday Times (November 27, 2005) [2]
• Business Week (September 19, 2005) [3]
• The Guardian (July 14, 2005) [4]
• PCTechTalk (July 10, 2005) [5]
• BusinessWeek Online (May 30, 2005) [6]
• IDG News Service (March 16, 2005) [7]
• PC Pro (March 11, 2005) [8]
• TMCnet (March 2, 2005) [9]
• Engadget (November 8, 2004) [10]
• Pocket PC Thoughts (September 3, 2004) [11]

[edit] External links

• Atomico Ventures, Zennström's venture capital firm
• Zennström Philanthropies