“All these bitches and niggas still hatin’
I used to be ballin’, but now I’m Bill Gate-in’”
–Lil’ Wayne

Shortly after we started Andreessen Horowitz, we, along with our partners at Silver Lake Partners and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, bought Skype from eBay for slightly more than $2B. The investment generated a tremendous amount of controversy for us. Marc and I were known as angel investors, so investing $50M of our $300M fund in one deal surprised people. While consistent with our stage-agnostic strategy, it was a very big deal very early on in the fund. To make matters more exciting, other investors and writers broadly criticized the deal. Joe Nocera of the New York Times wrote:

“Many people on Wall Street–and a number of telecommunications experts I spoke to this week–were stunned by the price Skype sold for, and not just because we’re in the middle of a recession.”

That controversy ended this morning when Microsoft announced that it was buying Skype for $8.5B less than two years after we bought it from eBay.

Let’s look back at the original decision and see why it turned out well. At the time, people criticized us for two primary reasons:

1. Ebay might not have owned Skype’s underlying intellectual property. Skype’s founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, held an IP claim against Skype. Many speculated that the founders would use their claim to shut down Skype and leave investors with nothing. This made the company theoretically impossible to buy.

As Nocera wrote:

“And so, the mystery of the Skype deal: why were the winning bidders willing to pay so high a price for a company whose very existence could be threatened by this lawsuit? One possibility is that they have nerves of steel. The other is that they know something nobody else does.”

2. The shifting technology landscape would tilt the playing field away from Skype. While Skype won the original Internet telephony wars, they did so with a fat desktop client. From a technology standpoint, at the time, it was technically impossible to field a high-quality web client or mobile product, but that time wouldn’t last. Many observers believed–as the world inevitably transitioned to mobile and web–Skype would be left in the dust.

With a company as complex as Skype, investors draw different conclusions about the same facts. In this case we had the same data as everybody else, but we had a radically higher opinion of Skype’s founders and employees than the investors who passed on the deal. We believed that we could work with rather than against the founders. More importantly, we believed that Skype’s engineering team, led by the original Eastern European wizards who created the service, could compete and win against anybody.

We thought that Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis wanted Skype to be a huge success and would do everything in their power to make that happen. As a result, we did not think the doomsday scenario that greatly concerned other investors–that the founders would attempt to shut down the company through the courts–was an actual possibility. Based on the founder’s motivations, we felt that we’d quickly settle the IP litigation. Both sides wanted to get on with the business of making Skype more competitive and could not afford to waste time bickering about IP ownership.

We couldn’t have been more right about that. After quickly settling the litigation, both founders immediately made major contributions to the business through their energy, insight, and intellectual prowess. And boy did we need them to do that, because we soon faced full frontal assaults from both Google and Apple.

When giants attack

In a direct attack, Google offered a free competitor to Skype’s U.S. paid product and a heavily discounted competitor to Skype’s international product. Google then aggressively promoted these cheap products to their enormous Gmail user base by forcing every Gmail user to view Google’s Internet telephony advertisement before allowing them to access their email. What was the result of this effort? Skype new users and usage growth has accelerated since Google’s launch culminating in:

· 500,000 new registered users per day
· 170 million connected users
· 30 million users communicating on the Skype platform concurrently
· 209 billion voice and video minutes in 2010

On the mobile front, Apple built video calling right into the iPhone, making their product the default offering for iPhone users. How did that impact Skype’s usage on the iPhone? 50 million users have downloaded Skype’s iPhone product since the release of Apple’s Facetime.

In retrospect, it was easy for people to underestimate the quality of the Skype engineering team and the power of Skype’s network effect. When we bought the company from eBay, many thought that Skype, like so many acquired technology companies, had lost its technical talent. Through our research we found that Skype had a core group of engineers who were completely dedicated to the mission. They stayed through the eBay acquisition and were determined to make Skype the communications company of the future. Over the past decade, this team consistently introduced groundbreaking technologies ranging from highly resilient and scalable peer-to-peer networking to radically higher sound quality through dramatically superior codecs. In doing so, Skype out-innovated the competition in the most important areas. When combined with its powerful network effect–how valuable is a video calling service if there is nobody to call?–Skype became a formidable competitor.

Smart move, Microsoft

Today, I tip my hat to an old rival, Microsoft. By acquiring Skype, Microsoft becomes a much stronger player in mobile and the clear market leader in Internet voice and video communications. More importantly, Microsoft gets a team, led by the exceptional Tony Bates, that can compete with anyone.

Ben Horowitz is co-founder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz. He co-founded Loudcloud, later renamed Opsware Inc., in 1999 and served as CEO of the company before it was acquired in 2007 by Hewlett-Packard. He was most recently vice president and general manager of Hewlett-Packard’s Business Technology Organization Unit.

When a group of powerful investors, including Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, waded into the mess at Skype less than two years ago with a $1.9 billion cash investment for a big chunk of the company, it was–how can BoomTown put this delicately–a hot mess.

With lawsuits flying over intellectual property violations, turmoil in the relationship with its eBay owners and increasing competitive pressures, you get the mess part.

But there was also the hot, because of so much potential in the fast-growing Internet telephony and video communications company.

Hotter today, it seems.

Microsoft–in what would be its most aggressive acquisition by the software giant in the digital space–is poised to announce that it will buy Skype, forking over $8.5 billion all in, which includes the assumption of the Luxembourg-based company’s debt.

Sources said that the splashy deal is now done and will be announced early this morning to much fanfare.

That is a far cry from 2009.

In fact, at the time that his newly hatched venture firm made its biggest deal yet, Silicon Valley legend Marc Andreessen was all sunshine and ponies about the just-settled tense legal situation.

As I wrote after talking to him then:

But, as Andreessen told BoomTown in a phone interview about the aggressive legal tactics of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis that resulted in them finally seizing a stake in the Internet telephony giant by suing him and many other Silicon Valley players:

“We did not take it personally. It’s a clean sheet of paper.”

Well, it is actually a torn, stained and very worn out piece of paper, due to all the various machinations, but bygones!

Andreessen–who knows a thing or two about legal tussles, if you recall Netscape-Microsoft–said the real point is that it is time to focus on the business of Skype rather than fighting over who controls Skype.

“It’s really good to have everyone lined up and rowing in the same direction. We have to capitalize on the opportunity, because Skype is poised for a new wave of growth,” said Andreessen. “They have an amazing head of steam, because the logical way for voice and video communications to be conducted will be over the Web.”

It turns out he was right, given the haul that Andreesen Horowitz and other investors will be getting now.

The price tag essentially tripled the $2.75 billion valuation then. In fact, a year before, eBay had actually written down the value of Skype to $1.9 billion.

That means for its $65 million–it was reported then the Andresseen Horowitz stake was $50 million, but it was more–it will nail nearly $200 million.

That could be much more depending on what percentage of the deal the VC firm actually got.

Andreessen Horowitz’s stake is joined with Silver Lake, as well as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

In total, they own about 56 percent of Skype, worth about $4.5 billion.

Another 30 percent is owned by eBay, which seems to have done a little better than even-steven for all its trouble with Skype.

It will get $2.4 billion now, having paid out about $3 billion back in 2005 for Skype. It got the $1.9 billion in the latest investor deal in 2009.

The big winners are Zennström and Friis, who keep on selling the same company to corporate moneybags over and over, while also suing anyone who looks at them crossways.

The Skype co-founders–who started out as Internet scofflaws with their Kazaa music-stealing service–had a 14 percent share, giving them $1.1 billion.

Like I said–not that I actually invest in any of these tech companies I cover–I’ll have what the lawsuit twins and Andreessen are having.

Back in 2009, in fact, he laid it out with regards to Skype pretty presciently.

“One of our investing mottos is that we invest in strength, not lack of weakness,” he said. “The question is how big is the opportunity.”

Big, apparently, now that Microsoft is footing the bill.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier tonight that Microsoft–in what would be its most aggressive acquisition in the digital space–was zeroing in on buying Skype for $8.5 billion all in with an assumption of the Luxembourg-based company’s debt.

Sources told BoomTown tonight that the deal for the online telephony and video communications giant is actually done and will be announced early tomorrow morning.

The purchase–which has been spearheaded in closely held negotiations by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with an assist from Business Division CFO Amy Hood and top dealmaker Charles Songhurst–is a bold move for the software giant and its biggest acquisition in more than three decades.

The big price will give Microsoft–which has struggled in its online efforts and has lost billions of dollars for its work–a big brand name on the Web.

With Skype, which has been aggressively expanding, Microsoft will continue to lose money in its Internet efforts. Skype lost $7 million on revenue of $860 million. Operating profits, which Skype preferred to highlight, were $264 million.

And–let us not forget–Skype’s debt is $686 million. Silver lining: That’s slightly less than Microsoft’s Online Services division losses in its most recent quarter!

But, sources said, the concept is bigger than just money, including getting access to Skype’s 663 million registered users.

Skype, which had been headed bumpily toward an IPO until now, will apparently be integrated into Microsoft’s Windows Live and other online communications efforts in both the consumer and enterprise arenas, sources said.

Think Kinect connecting.

Skype has had a big-company owner before–eBay Inc. paid $2.6 billion in cash and stock for it in 2005, as a way for the auction site’s buyers and sellers to communicate.

A 70 percent stake in Skype was sold in 2009 to investors such as Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. It then valued Skype at $2.75 billion.

So, obviously, the deal is a big win for them. In addition, at the time they made their investments, Skype was a huge legal mess with lawsuits flying.

Skype has since gotten cleaned up enough to attract Microsoft.

Other suitors have looked at Skype, including Google, although acquisition interest by Facebook was very much overblown, said several sources.

Interestingly, Microsoft’s new smartphone partner Nokia also held meetings with Skype’s CEO Tony Bates, a former Cisco exec who arrived at the company last fall.

Interest in Skype by Microsoft was first reported by GigaOm’s Om Malik on Sunday.

Tune in at 5 am PT for the official press release, apparently, and lots and lots and lots of analysis of whether Microsoft paid too much for Skype.

The first improvement is in the subscriber numbers. Skype says it has 663 million subscribers, an improvement of more than 100 million from the original filing. It serves 145 million of those subscribers at least once a month–21 million more than in the August filing, and it has 8.8 million paid subscribers, up from 8.1 million previously. Skype users made 207 billion minutes of voice and video calls during 2010, and in the fourth quarter, video calls accounted for approximately 42 percent of all Skype-to-Skype minutes. Users sent more than 176 million text messages via Skype.

Revenues grew to $860 million for the year ended Dec. 31, up from $719 million in 2009 (combining the 2009 results of Skype pre-spinoff from eBay and post-spinoff). Operating profit for the year was just shy of $21 million, a significant turnaround from a $364 million combined operating loss the year before. The net loss was $6.9 million.

One new revenue source that’s coming: Advertising. “We have also enhanced the functionality on our Skype 5.1 client for Windows and Skype 5.0 client for Mac to enable them to feature display advertising,” the filing says. But there’s the classic problem of injecting advertising where there was none before: Users tend not to like it very much. Skype acknowledges as much elsewhere in the filing discussing risks: “Finally, our users may respond negatively to receiving advertisements through their Skype software client, which could negatively and materially affect user engagement, our Skype brand and our results of operations.”

Skype Chief marketing officer Doug Bewsher discusses the onset of ads in a blog posting here. He says initially, Skype will be starting slow. Ads will be targeted only in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany at first. “You may only see ads occasionally,” he writes. “Our initial plan is to show an ad from one brand per day in each of the markets where advertising is being sold.” The ads will start appearing in the Home Tab this week.

The filing also contains some disclosures on the system failure that hit Skype late last year, though no new color on exactly what happened. A software error in the Skype client for Windows caused 40 percent of users online at that time to fail, resulting in a loss of somewhere from 25 to 30 percent of the network’s super nodes. The increased demand load on the super nodes that remained online was too much and shortly the whole network went down. Skype admits that negative publicity might hurt its ability to introduce a product aimed at businesses: “As we increasingly introduce products particularly targeted at enterprise customers, for whom system stability is a critical factor, any system failures could have a significant impact on our ability to attract or maintain our relationships with enterprise customers.”

The Internet communications company says it will raise up to $100 million in the offering. The investment group that bought the company for more than $1.9 billion last year includes Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

UPDATE: Someone who wants to remain anonymous suggests that the $100 million “Proposed Maximum Aggregate Offering Price” that Skype’s owners have filed with the SEC is merely a placeholder. Which means the company may ultimately seek to raise much more. (And of course they could simply sell the whole thing to a single buyer without ever going public). But until we hear otherwise, we’ve got to go with what they’re telling the government.

Unlike Demand Media, Skype is profitable–in the first six months of this year, it netted $13 million on revenues of $406 million. But like Demand, Skype would like investors to look at different “non-GAAP” metrics that portray it as a very, very profitable company. If you accept “adjusted EBITDA”–and much of Wall Street will–Skype generated profits of $115.8 million during that same time frame.

And as with Demand, Goldman Sachs (GS) is leading this one too. Other underwriters include J.P. Morgan (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS).

For those who asked: Most of Skype’s users don’t pay the company a penny, but some pay for extra services, such as the ability to connect to a landline or wireless line. Skype says it has 560 million registered users, and 124 million who use it at least once a month. Of those, 8.1 million are paying an average of $96 a year.

One last interesting tidbit: As a result of a complicated settlement with Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, Skype has ended up in the digital music business. It has put $6 million into Rdio, the new streaming music service the duo founded.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for the next big-name, big-dollar tech IPO, a good candidate would be Glam Media, which has been laying track for an offering for some time.

Silicon Valley legend and now VC Marc Andreessen was making the interview rounds after the settlement between the litigation-addled co-founders of Skype and all the various people they were suing was announced this morning.

He has been tight-lipped until now, due to the morass of lawsuits.

But, as Andreessen told BoomTown in a phone interview about the aggressive legal tactics of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis that resulted in them finally seizing a stake in the Internet telephony giant by suing him and many other Silicon Valley players:

“We did not take it personally. It’s a clean sheet of paper.”

Well, it is actually a torn, stained and very worn out piece of paper, due to all the various machinations, but bygones!

Andreessen–who knows a thing or two about legal tussles, if you recall Netscape-Microsoft (MSFT)–said the real point is that it is time to focus on the business of Skype rather than fighting over who controls Skype.

“It’s really good to have everyone lined up and rowing in the same direction. We have to capitalize on the opportunity, because Skype is poised for a new wave of growth,” said Andreessen. “They have an amazing head of steam, because the logical way for voice and video communications to be conducted will be over the Web.”

Thus, Zennström and Friis now join the winning buyout group, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, along with eBay, in owning Skype.

But Index Ventures, which was in, is–as Heidi Klum might say–out!

Under the terms of the agreement, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis will take a 14 percent stake in the company they founded and then sold to eBay (EBAY), which will include an undisclosed investment by them.

I reported yesterday that the total was 13 percent–10 percent for the rights to key Skype technology held by the co-founders and the option to invest $83 million for three percent more.

In exchange, the pair will give Skype software essential to its operation and drop their various lawsuits against eBay and Skype’s buyers.

As for Zennström and Friis’s egregious use of the courts to grab their 14 percent stake in Skype, litigation they waged after losing their bid to buy Skype back from eBay, Andreessen was being very politic.

“We love working with aggressive founders and are in favor of founders being involved in their companies,” he said. “Great founders are not known for being shy and reserved. Look at Bill Gates. It’s not a question of personality, but of accomplishment.”

Noting that he had not worked with the pair before, Andreessen (pictured here) said, “We have a lot of respect for them. We think they’re geniuses.”

But, I queried, would he have used such tactics?

“It’s not a book club, it’s a super-serious, high-stakes game,” said Andreessen. “I don’t know; I’ve not been in the situation they’re in. If your goal in life is to avoid drama, this is probably the wrong industry for you.”

Perhaps, but I told him that I doubted even a battle-hardened entrepreneur like Andreessen would use the courts in such a manner to achieve business goals.

To each his own, said Andreessen!

“One of our investing mottos is that we invest in strength, not lack of weakness,” he said. “The question is how big is the opportunity.”

And, apparently, it is big enough to overlook all the drama that has gone on.

Andreessen said he expects to be more involved at Skype–which, with his $50 million investment, is the biggest deal in his $300 million fund–than other board members, noting different directors have different roles.

It’s a big board of 23, as I had previously reported. Zennström and Friis are each getting a seat.

“We are going to be helpful,” Andreessen said about his fund’s role at Skype. “We’re a company picker, looking for those that have the greatest potential.”

Andreessen, ever the diplomat, made sure to add that that also means doing business with Index, the member of his Skype consortium that departed as Friis and Zennström (pictured here) entered, due to stark tensions between the two sides.

“I have a lot of respect for [Index partners Danny Rimer and Mike Volpi] and expect to work with them a lot in the future,” said Andreessen. “In fact, I am talking to them today about two other deals.”

In other words, in Silicon Valley, the big wheel just keeps on turning.

The legal high jinks in the contentious battle over the fate of Skype got worse this afternoon, as former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the founders of Skype–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, via Joost and Joltid–against them.

It’s yet another chess move among a group of well-known tech players, who used to work together closely and are now at odds.

In a filing in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Volpi and the London-based Index–where Volpi now works–noted, referring to a bid Zennström and Friis made to regain control of Skype, which they sold to eBay (EBAY) years ago:

“Instead of accepting the fact that their bid failed in the marketplace, Friis and Zennström are now using inflammatory and highly-charged litigation–through companies that have no relationship to the Skype purchase–to try to achieve their personal business goals.”

A spokesman for Joost and Joltid did not agree with Volpi’s assessment:

“Mr. Volpi’s latest motion appears to have been prepared prior to Defendants receiving Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, which is filled with evidence supporting Plaintiffs’ claims. In light of this strong showing of substantive evidence, much of it from Mr. Volpi’s own correspondence, there is no basis for Mr. Volpi’s assertion that Plaintiffs have somehow failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Index was a small player within a group that won Skype, putting in $75 million, in a $2 billion deal that is set to close in the next few weeks.

The motion to dismiss the filing is not surprising given that Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Volpi and Index yesterday.

They are asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have already been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost have also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index, making serious allegations about his behavior as Joost CEO.

Here are several key legal filings to peruse, for all you “Law & Order” types:

Motion to Dismiss _00302105_ –

Opposition to Motion For Expedition _00302104_ –

Volpi Opening Brief 10.15.09 _00302101_ –

Perhaps the sides in the ever-escalating war over the Skype deal will work out their differences and settle–which is what should and probably will eventually happen after everyone realizes how stupid all this noisy legal wrangling over the Internet telephony giant is.

But that day is decidedly not today, given a pair of recent PR hires by parties involved.

The founders of Skype, via the two tech companies they control, Joost and Joltid, have hired Sitrick & Company, headquartered in Los Angeles, while Index Ventures has tapped Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, based in New York.

Both strategic communications and public relations firms are well known for employing some very sharp elbows and extremely tough talk when it is time for some creative corporate crisis management.

And both are familiar with tech issues, having worked on contentious issues related to companies such as Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO), CBS (CBS) online unit CNET, and others.

And there is plenty of bad blood to work with here.

Yesterday, in yet another legal volley, Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures, where Volpi now works as a partner.

They are asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

Legal attacks have become the negotiating tool of choice from the founders of Skype, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who were on the losing side of the $2 billion deal to buy the Internet telephony giant from eBay (EBAY).

Volpi is now a partner at London-based Index, which was one of the smaller players on the winning side of the bid, putting up $75 million.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have already been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost have also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index, making serious allegations about his behavior as Joost CEO.

This kind of mud-slinging could get even worse with the hiring of big PR firms.

Along with Frank and Sitrick, by the way, Silver Lake–which is the big player on the winning side–has hired Edelman’s crisis and issues management team.

Interestingly, several sources said, the various players have also been engaged in settlement talks, even as the lawsuits have piled up.

Coming to some agreement is clearly the best outcome, although it does not appear that the spate of lawsuits has yet derailed the eBay deal with the Silver Lake-led group, which could even close in the next several weeks.

“Everyone should be thinking ahead of the headlights,” said one source. “But right now, it seems to be all about emotions.”

Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures, where Volpi now works as a partner, asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

The move is yet another legal attack from the founders of Skype, who were on the losing side of the $2 billion deal to buy the Internet telephony giant from eBay (EBAY).

Opening the “Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction,” which is shown below and is full of tough allegations about Volpi’s misbehavior:

“This action arises out of the acts of a faithless fiduciary, defendant Michelangelo Volpi, who, despite being the chief executive and Chairman of Joost, embarked on a systematic scheme to breach his fiduciary duties and promote his own self-aggrandizing campaign to become the next chairman of internet telephony leader Skype Inc.”

Volpi, who declined comment for now, was CEO of Joost, arriving at the much-hyped online video start-up to great fanfare in mid-2007.

But the London-based Joost never quite caught fire and began layoffs and contraction this summer.

As part of that development, Volpi then went to Index Ventures, a venture firm also based in London.

And, in one of Volpi’s first deals, Index was one of the smaller players on the winning side of the bid to buy Skype, putting up $75 million.

But also vying for the prize were the Internet telephony service’s founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who had hooked up with a group of private equity investors.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they also added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost–aka Zennström and Friis–also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index again.

They allege tech skullduggery on Volpi’s part, in which he used confidential information he learned at Joost to thwart Joltid.

UPDATE: Here is the press release, with the official filing below:

Joost and Joltid File Motion for Preliminary Injunction Against Michelangelo Volpi

And Index Ventures Management, Seeking to Prevent Their Use of Confidential Information In Connection With the Acquisition or Management of Skype

Wilmington, DE (Oct. 14, 2009)–Joost US, Inc., its indirect parent company Joost N.V., and Joltid Limited today filed a Motion for Preliminary Injunction against Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures Management in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. In support of the Motion, the plaintiffs also filed a Memorandum of Points and Authorities containing facts and legal arguments, witness declarations and other evidence.

The Motion for Preliminary Injunction asks the Court to enjoin Index and Volpi from using any of Joost’s and Joltid’s confidential information regarding (among other things) the Global Index Software, the technology developed and owned by Joltid that provides the peer-to-peer capability embedded in the Skype program. The Motion also asks the Court to enjoin the defendants from: (i) using the confidential information in connection with the operation or strategic planning of Skype; (ii) communicating such information to other parties in the “Buyout Group” that has made a bid to acquire Skype from eBay Inc.; (iii) soliciting employees of Joost and Joltid with offers to join Skype; (iv) having communications with current or former employees of Joost or Joltid regarding the companies’ confidential information; and (v) further participating in the Skype acquisition or assuming any position with Skype until a final adjudication of the merits of the case.

The Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Memorandum of Points and Authorities, and supporting declarations are available on the internet at https://www.lexisnexis.com/fileandserve. The case name is Joost US Inc. et al v. Volpi et al and the Case Number is 1:09-cv-708.

The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the defendants on September 18, 2009, alleging breach of fiduciary duty against Volpi, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against Index, interference with prospective business advantage, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract against Index, breach of confidence, and civil conspiracy. The Motion for Preliminary Injunction seeks interim relief until the lawsuit can be completed.

And here is the key filing, one of 10 in the case:

PI Brief – PUBLIC –

Is it just me or is it completely ironic that a pair of European entrepreneurs kept out of the United States due to tantrum lawsuits from the music industry are stamping their own legal feet like two ill-tempered toddlers of late?

That would be Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, who today filed yet another lawsuit in their seemingly never-ending quest to win in court what they couldn’t in business dealmaking.

Today, via a new lawsuit, they are following through on their recent attempt to smear former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi.

Zennström and Friis co-founded Joost, you see, and last week were part of dumping him as a director and as its chairman, a job Volpi had retained when he left his top job at Joost to join Index Ventures in July.

Not satisfied with that, Joost also said then in an astonishing statement: “The company and its board of directors is conducting an investigation into Mr. Volpi’s actions during his tenure as CEO and as chairman.”

Of course, it is all part of the pair being on the very-sore-losing side of the $2 billion deal to buy Skype from eBay (EBAY).

Zennström and Friis got very rich selling the Internet telephony service to eBay in 2005.

This year, they turned around and tried to buy it back, hooking up with a group of private-equity investors.

Both Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) also considered bids, and dropped out for various reasons.

And so did Volpi, in one of his first deals at Index–and the London-based venture firm was one of the smaller players on the winning side of the deal to buy Skype, putting up $75 million.

To complicate things further, Zennström and Friis also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have already been fighting in a British court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Earlier this week, via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they also added the winning buyout group, including Silver Lake Partners, Index, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Did I forget to mention that lawsuit-happy Zennström and Friis also sued the investment banker who represented them in the original Skype sale?

So, it comes as no shock that both Joltid and Joost–aka Zennström and Friis–announced yesterday that they are suing Volpi personally, as well as Index again.

They allege tech skullduggery on Volpi’s part, in which he used confidential information he learned at Joost to thwart Joltid.

Evidence and proof–on first blush–seem to have little to do with this and ire at losing a deal and trying to gain leverage for a settlement seem to be the true game.

And what their next legal move might be is anybody’s guess.

But you get the idea here, don’t you?

The suit, over Joltid-owned peer-to-peer technology used in Skype’s software, seeks an injunction against Skype as well as damages that Joltid claims “are amassing at a rate of more than $75 million daily.”

A nasty surprise for Skype’s new owners: Silver Lake, the Silicon Valley-based private equity group; Index Ventures, the London-based venture capital firm; Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen’s new Andreessen Horowitz fund; and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. Though, really they should have seen this coming. After all, Skype and Joltid have been sparring since earlier this year.

From an eBay Securities and Exchange Commission filing earlier this year:

As previously disclosed, Skype has been in a dispute with the licensor of certain key technologies and had terminated a “standstill” agreement that had been entered into between the parties, permitting either to take action against the other with effect from March 2009. On March 12, 2009, Skype Technologies S.A. filed a claim in the English High Court of Justice (No. HC09C00756) against Joltid Limited, a BVI company.

In connection with the license agreement between the two companies, Skype licenses peer-to-peer communication technology from Joltid, and Joltid has claimed that Skype has breached the terms of the license agreement. Following the filing of the claim, Joltid purported to terminate the license agreement. In particular, Joltid has alleged that Skype should not possess, use or modify certain software code (the “Code”) and that, by doing so, and by disclosing the Code in certain U.S. patent cases, pursuant to orders from U.S. courts, it has breached the license agreement.

On the basis of, among other things, the parties’ mutual dealings since the execution of the licence agreement, Skype is asking the English High Court for declaratory relief, including findings that:

(i) Skype is lawfully accessing, in possession of, using and modifying the Code so that Skype is not in breach of the license agreement with Joltid and accordingly Joltid’s notice of breach and subsequent notice of termination are invalid;

(ii) Skype lawfully disclosed the Code in the U.S. patent cases so that Skype is not in breach of the license agreement with Joltid and accordingly Joltid’s notice of breach and subsequent notice of termination are invalid; and

(iii) Joltid has certain indemnity obligations in relation to the U.S. patent proceedings.

Although Skype is confident of its legal position, as with any litigation there is the possibility of an adverse result if the matter is not resolved through negotiation. In such event, Skype would be adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype’s business as currently conducted would likely not be possible.

Perhaps this is why we saw so few bidders for Skype?