MyHeritage seeks $1 billion sale as Francisco Partners tests exit
The genealogy company has hired Jefferies four years after being acquired at a $600 million valuation.
MyHeritage has hired Jefferies to lead a potential sale valuing the company at around $1 billion. The genealogy services company is controlled by the private equity firm Francisco Partners, which is spearheading the process.
MyHeritage operates in dozens of languages across more than 180 countries. Its business model is built around premium services that allow users to create detailed and complex family trees. The company has gone through several ownership and strategic iterations over the years, culminating in its sale to Francisco Partners in February 2021. Francisco Partners’ Israeli operations are led by former Alvarion CEO Eran Gorev. Alongside Francisco Partners, minority stakes in the company are held by the family foundation of SAP founder Hasso Plattner and by investor Gigi Levy.
Founded in 2003 by Gilad Japhet, MyHeritage is considered one of the three dominant global players in family history and consumer genetics. Headquartered in Or Yehuda, the company serves more than 104 million registered users worldwide and manages a database of roughly 21 billion historical records. Francisco Partners acquired MyHeritage in 2021 at an estimated valuation of about $600 million.
The company’s business model combines subscription revenue with sales of physical products. MyHeritage generates income primarily through content subscriptions and DNA testing. Subscribers pay annual fees to access extensive databases that include birth and marriage certificates, census records, and historical newspaper archives. In parallel, the company sells at-home DNA testing kits. Beyond direct sales, these kits expand MyHeritage’s genetic database, creating a powerful network effect: each additional test increases the likelihood of matching relatives for existing users, enhancing the overall value of the service.
While MyHeritage offers a range of free tools, these are limited compared with the features available to paying subscribers.
Shortly before its acquisition by Francisco Partners, MyHeritage launched “Deep Nostalgia,” a tool that animates still photographs. It later introduced “AI Time Machine,” which enables users to generate historical-style avatars. Both products were designed to create viral engagement on social media and to attract younger audiences to the platform.
MyHeritage operates in a highly competitive market. Its main rival is Ancestry.com, widely regarded as the world’s largest genealogy company, with more than 25 million DNA test profiles and over 60 billion historical records. In the past, 23andMe also posed significant competition. Once a pioneer in consumer genetic testing, 23andMe has struggled in recent years and was sold back to its founder in June for $305 million as part of U.S. bankruptcy proceedings. On the eve of bankruptcy, its market capitalization had fallen to about $13 million, down from a peak valuation of roughly $6 billion in 2021. Unlike MyHeritage, 23andMe’s business model relied heavily on DNA kit sales combined with data-analysis partnerships with pharmaceutical companies.
