The predecessor to the TU Foundation / Netnod was the D-GIX, an Internet exchange point that was established at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and operated by KTHNOC. D-GIX had been one of the first IXes established in Europe, and quite successful at that. In 1996 a report by a committee, ) had listed infrastructure that was critical for the operation of the Internet in Sweden. Among the critical infrastructure listed was a robust and reliable Internet exchange. A number of factors led KTH as well as the Swedish ISPs to conclude that a separate legal entity would be a better operational format. After legal consultations, and seeing that the Swedish government seemed keen to play a role in the infrastructure operation, the Swedish ISPs decided to found the TU Foundation. The initial capital came from a government set up foundation, the Knowledge Foundation, KK-stiftelsen, one of the largest Swedish research foundations. The idea behind the ownership model with the foundation was that it would guarantee independence from the operators as well as from the government. Linkage to the operational community comes from the fact that the Swedish university network SUNET appoints one of the board members, and the Swedish Network Users Society (SNUS) one of the Netnod board members. These two directly appointed board members jointly appoints the third board member.
