Rdio, a US-based provider of online music, has raised $17.5m from Europe’s most influential investment diaspora.
Skype, an online phone operator started by entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, has invested in Rdio. Skype’s investment came alongside one of its own original venture capital backers, Mangrove Capital Partners, which is a new investor in Rdio, and Zennstrom and Friis’s new investment company Atomico.
Friis then went on from Skype to also found Rdio while Zennstrom reinvested in Skype after a leveraged buyout of two-thirds of the phone operator from online auction company eBay for $2.75bn.
EBay had originally paid more than $3.1bn including performance fees to buy Skype in 2001, making it Europe’s most successful venture exit.