EBay planned to announce on Tuesday that it had a deal to sell its

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Skype Internet calling division to a group of private investors, according to two people briefed on the company’s plans.

The investment group was likely to include Andreessen Horowitz, a new venture capital firm headed by the Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, the people said. One of the people added that Index Ventures, a London-based venture capital firm that was an early investor in Skype, and the private equity firm Silver Lake Partners were also involved. A price was not disclosed, but eBay had said it wanted around $2 billion for Skype, which is on track to take in more than $600 million in revenue this year.

Alan Marks, a spokesman for eBay, would not comment on the matter. Mr.

Andreessen is on eBay’s board of directors.

EBay acquired Skype in 2005, outbidding Google and Yahoo in a deal that has come to be viewed as one of the worst technology transactions of the decade.

Including payouts to Skype’s founders, the price ultimately topped $3.1 billion.

EBay later wrote down $900 million of Skype’s value after it became clear that the company was not a good fit with eBay’s main e-commerce and online payment businesses.

Although eBay had said it was planning an initial public offering for the Skype division next year, it has also been talking to various companies and investment groups interested in buying the service. Skype’s founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, approached private equity firms earlier this year in hopes of making a bid for their old company.

But they did not meet eBay’s price, and separately the parties have been fighting in a British court over ownership of the core peer-to-peer technology behind the Skype service. The case is due to be heard by a British court next year.

Last month, eBay also negotiated with Google over a sale of Skype, according to a person briefed on those discussions.

But Google ultimately walked away from a potential deal, fearing that continued litigation could leave it vulnerable to immense damages.

Google also worried that its owning Skype might alienate wireless carriers, which offer their customers phones running Google’s Android software, the person said.

It was not clear whether Skype’s founders were involved in the new deal and had agreed to relinquish their legal claim