Niklas Zennström
| Niklas Zennström | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
16 February 1966 Järfälla, Sweden |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur and Investor |
Niklas Zennström (born 16 February 1966) is a Swedish entrepreneur best known for founding several high-profile online ventures with Janus Friis including Skype and Kazaa. More recently he founded the technology investment firm Atomico and has become a significant figurehead for entrepreneurs in the tech sector. Zennström is also the co-founder of the charity organization Zennström Philanthropies.
Zennström has dual degrees in Business Administration (BSc) and Engineering Physics (MSc) from Uppsala University in Sweden. He spent his final year at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Zennström started his professional career in 1991 at the European telecom operator Tele2. He went on to serve in various business development roles including launching and being responsible for European Internet Service Provider business get2net and as CEO of the everyday.com portal.
In 2000 Zennström and Janus Friis co-founded Kazaa, the peer-to-peer file sharing application. Niklas served as CEO and the program became the world's most downloaded Internet software in 2003. After lawsuits were filed by members of the music and motion picture industry in the USA, Kazaa was sold to Sharman Networks.
Zennström then founded and served as CEO at Joltid, a software company developing and marketing peer-to-peer solutions and traffic optimization technologies. Zennström also co-founded Altnet, the world's first secure peer-to-peer network promoting commercial content to consumers integrating promotion, distribution, and payment of digital content.
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