The men who developed Skype plan to back start-up European companies offering disruptive technologies through a new venture capital fund.
Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis have raised $165 million (€121 million) for the fund, the second to be offered by investment firm Atomico Ventures, which the pair founded in 2006, the Financial Times reports.
The pair will look for small, consumer-focused, start ups that could become the next Google , Skype, or Facebook with minimal additional financing, Zennström is quoted as saying.
In a separate interview with the newspaper, Zennström – who also founded music-sharing site Kazaa - said Atomico would look to invest in companies offering multimedia content, and predicted piracy would begin to die out in the years ahead, as more companies offer reasonably-priced content.