MyHeritage Acquires Geni.com and Raises $25M

MyHeritage, an online family history network, has acquired rival Geni.com and closed a new $25M funding.

The round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), with participation from existing investors Index Ventures and Accel Partners.

In conjunction with the transactions, Geni.com Founder David Sacks, who also founded Yammer, and BVP Partner Adam Fisher are joining the company’s MyHeritage’s Board of Directors.

The acquisition reinforces MyHeritage’s position as a global power player in the family history industry extending its network to 72 million registered users, 1.5 billion profiles and 27 million family trees.

The company intends to use the proceeds from the financing to expand its historical content services and expand commercial operations worldwide by exploring additional M&A opportunities and ramping up international marketing operations.

Following the acquisition, Geni.com will continue to operate as a separate brand based out of its California office, which will also serve as the main engineering hub for MyHeritage in the US, alongside its main content offices in Utah. The entire staff at Geni.com will join the MyHeritage team.
The services of the two companies will initially run independently.

Led by founder and CEO Gilad Japhet, MyHeritage is a family history network which empowers its users with social tools and a massive library of historical content. The site is available in 38 languages.

FinSMEs

29/11/2012

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