Photo by Lacy Atkins/The Chronicle
Geni.com, the online genealogy site that spawned the successful enterprise social networking company Yammer, was bought Wednesday by rival MyHeritage of Tel Aviv.
It’s the second big deal of the year for Geni founder David Sacks, following Microsoft’s $1.2 billion acquisition of San Francisco’s Yammer in July. Exact terms of the Geni-MyHeritage deal were not disclosed, but the eight-figure transaction was a mix of cash and equity.
Sacks started the online family tree building service in 2007. But Yammer was created as a better way for Geni workers to communicate internally, and in 2008, it was spun out into a standalone company that grew like wildfire.
Earlier this year, Yammer had 4 million users at 200,000 companies in 160 countries.
MyHeritage, which has 72 million registered users, said it will keep all of Geni’s employees and still operate the company as a separate brand based in Los Angeles, which will also serve as its main U.S. engineering hub.
Sacks, one of the so-called PayPal Mafia who have gone on to other tech startups, is joining MyHeritage’s board of directors.
“Together with MyHeritage, we look forward to continuing Geni’s mission of connecting humanity through a single family tree,” Sacks said in a statement.
