Roundup: Ancestry IPO, exec pay cap in Congress, Verizon’s sub-$99 smartphones
Ancestry.com files for a $75 million IPO – The company, which traces its roots back to Ancestry Magazine and 1983, has collected nearly $400 million to date — $95 in investment rounds, and another $300 million from the sale of a majority stake to Spectrum Equity Investors in 2007. Now, with a claimed $197.6 million in 2008 revenue, and $8 million in profits on $99 million in revenue for the first half of this year, Ancestry… Continue Reading
Genetic genealogy hits the big time
No question about it, genetic genealogy — the hobby of using genetic tests to trace your ancestry and, in some cases, to locate previously unknown relatives — is hot these days. Today, of course, brought the news that Ancestry.com, a genealogy Web site that lets users construct family trees and pore over digitized versions of old census records or ship-passenger manifests, is launching a DNA Ancestry service as well. (Matt covered that in his story… Continue Reading
Ancestry.com launches DNA testing, gets $300M investment
updated
The Generations Network, operator of Ancestry.com has just received $300 million from Spectrum Equity Investors, a Silicon Valley buyout firm, which will take a majority stake in the company.
Ancestry.com has also just launched DNA testing of its 5 billion records, so that family members can resolve mysteries about their ancestors, i.e., find out for sure who they are and are not related to. This is smart, because it exploits peoples’ keen interest in their own… Continue Reading