Niklas Zennström (; born 16 February 1966) is a Swedish entrepreneur, technology investor, and philanthropist. He is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of a European venture capital firm Atomico based in London. Previously, he co-founded the file-sharing service KaZaA and the internet telephony provider Skype with Janus Friis, where he was the CEO until March 2008. He attended Uppsala University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master's degree in engineering physics. He spent one year as an exchange student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Career
Zennström began his career in 1991 at the telecommunications company Tele2, where he worked under Jan Stenbeck.
In 2003, Zennström and Friis launched Skype, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. In September 2005, eBay acquired Skype for approximately €2.1 billion ($2.6 billion). In 2010, he and Friis launched the music streaming service Rdio which was acquired by Pandora in 2015.
Philanthropy
In 2007, Zennström and his wife, Catherine, established Zennström Philanthropies, a foundation that focuses on climate change and human rights initiatives. Zennström also founded Race for the Baltic, a non-profit organization focused on the environmental restoration of the Baltic Sea. In 2013, he funded a visiting professorship in climate change leadership at Uppsala University.
Awards and recognition
- 2006: Named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people. He also received the European Business Leaders Award for Entrepreneur of the Year, The Economists Innovation Award, and Business Leader of the Year by European Voice in the same year.
- 2009: Awarded the KTH Great Prize by the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
- 2011: Received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute.
- 2014: Swedish Startup Hall of Fame
- 2015: Named Alumnus of the Year by Uppsala University.