An investor group led by Silver Lake, the technology-minded private equity house, is going to buy 65% of Skype from eBay for $1.9 billion in cash plus a $125 million note in a deal that values the VoIP software operation at $2.75 billion, a tad more than the $2.6 billion eBay paid for it.

eBay, which later wrote off $1.4 billion of the price, says it's keeping the remaining 35%.

It bought the thing in 2005 expecting to use it to push its auction business. That notion came a cropper and for all the money eBay laid out for Skype it didn't secure the base IP.

Skype's founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, also famous for creating Kazaa's music-sharing widgetry, are now suing eBay in the UK and threatening to pull its license to the Skype technology they continue to own. The litigation must have complicated the negotiations with Silver Lake et al.

Zennstrom and Friis wanted to buy Skype back earlier this year but could not put a big enough offer together.

The new crop of buyers includes Index Venture, one of Skype's original investors, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB). Andreessen Horowitz is of course Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen's new $300 million VC fund.

The move, following its clumsy fit with eBay, is supposed to give Skype a better chance of growing. Andreessen is quoted as saying the investors mean to use their skills with technology to "build the company into a core Internet franchise at huge scale."

Skype's revenues last year hit $551 million, up 44% year-over-year. Registered users at the end of 2008 totaled 405 million. Three months ago they were supposed to number 480 million with revenues up 25% in the second quarter to $170 million.

eBay has projected revenues will pass $1 billion in 2011. The company, which mumbled something earlier this year about an IPO, has recently introduced a Skype iPhone app and cut partnerships with mobile carriers Nokia and Hutchison.

The deal is expected to close in Q4.