Born on February 16, 1966, in Järfälla, Sweden, Zennstrom is the co-founder of Joost, Atomico, Skype and Kazaa, among other companies. Currently, he is a partner of Atomico and co-chairman of Joost. Holding dual degrees in business and Msc Engineering Physics/Computer Science from Uppsala University in Sweden, he embarked on his professional career 1991 joining Europe's first competitive phone company, Tele2. Only one year later, he teamed up with Janus Friis and together they set up Kazaa, a peer-to-peer file sharing application. Under Niklas's term as CEO, the program became the world's most downloaded Internet software in 2003. Also, the two co-founded Skype in 2002, with the aim to free consumers and businesses associates from the need to pay for talking to each other across the globe. It didn't take much time for Skype to turn into the chief leader in Internet voice communications worldwide, attracting more than 276 million registered users within less than four years of its launch. Skype crowned its success in September of 2005 when eBay Inc purchased the company for $3.1 billion US Dollars. Zennstrom served as Skype's CEO from its initiation until September 2007. Meanwhile, in 2006, he and his longtime partner Friis founded Joost, an Internet TV service that has changed the way people experience television moving it over to the net. Apart from being an innovative businessman, Niklas Zennstrom loves to spend his time offshore racing, sailing or skiing. Even though he is a Swedish citizen, he lives in London and is happily married.
