Social Networking Watch: News on the Social Networking and Social Media Industry

Ancestry.com Agrees To $1.6 Billion Buyout

TECH CRUNCH - Oct 22 - Genealogy site Ancestry.com, which filed for an IPO back in 2009, has agreed to be acquired by an investor group led by European private equity firm Permira in a deal said to be worth ~$1.6 billion, or $32 per share. Earlier this month Ancestry.com bought print photograph digitizing startup 1000memories, and also recently acquired competitor Archives.com for $100M. It has ~2M paying subscribers, and grew its revenues from $166M in 2007 to $399.7M in 2011.

by Natasha Lomas
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Websites Use DNA To Create Family Trees

WSJ - May 16 - Ancestry.com, a genealogy-research website with ~1.9 M subscribers, rolled out a $99 DNA service that lets users compare some 700K points on their own genome with those of others in its database. The site, which also charges a monthly subscription fee of $12.95, uses DNA data to create a map of users' ethnic backgrounds and uncover biological relationships between people. Ancestry brought in $400M in revenue last year.

by Geoffrey A. Fowler
See full article at WSJ