Inflection Sells Archives.com to Ancestry.com Inc.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Inflection, a Silicon Valley Big Data startup, today announced the sale of its family history website Archives.com to Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) for $100 million in cash. Archives.com will continue under Inflection leadership until the completion of customary closing conditions.

"The sale is an exciting moment for Inflection and the broader family history community," said Inflection CEO Matthew Monahan. "Thanks to Archives.com General Manager Joe Godfrey's inspired leadership and our extraordinary team, Archives.com has quickly become one of family history's most dynamic web properties. Our plan for a simple and affordable family history experience will be accelerated thanks to Ancestry's deep expertise and resources."  

Once the acquisition is completed, Ancestry.com will continue to operate and develop Archives.com using the existing Archives.com brand and website. Most of the Archives.com team, including key personnel in leadership, engineering, design, marketing, and business development, will transition to Ancestry.com.

"The past three years have been marked by tremendous growth for Archives.com, as we've focused intently on making family history simple and affordable for millions of budding family historians," said Joe Godfrey. "The acquisition by Ancestry.com will further fuel this momentum, and the team and I are thrilled."

Inflection launched Archives.com, then dubbed GenealogyArchives.com, in July 2009 to satisfy a growing demand for comprehensive online access to historical records. From humble beginnings, Archives.com rapidly grew to encompass over 2 billion records and generate over 5 million monthly visits.

Key partnerships, like those with FamilySearch International and NewspaperARCHIVE, have supported Archives.com's massive content acquisition effort. Of special note is Archives.com's partnership with the National Archives and Records Administration to provide free digital access to the 1940 U.S. Census, culminating in the April 2nd debut of 1940census.archives.gov, the most hotly anticipated genealogical record release of the decade.

"The 1940 census release was an extraordinary event for both Archives.com and family history in general," said Inflection Executive VP of Business and Corporate Development John Spottiswood. "It spawned a new level of mainstream awareness about family history, and we're excited that this momentum will only grow as Archives.com joins the Ancestry family."

The sale proceeds will further enhance Inflection's existing product line and accelerate the development of a soon-to-be-announced major new product offering in the online identity space.

"While Inflection was already superbly poised going forward, the sale of Archives.com significantly improves our ability to develop an array of incredible new products for consumers, professionals, and small businesses," said Brian Monahan, the company's Co-Founder and Chief Idea Guy. "The Inflection team will continue to be a top destination for technology talent and an industry-leader in data services."

About Archives.com

Archives.com is a leading family history website that makes discovering family history simple and affordable. The company has assembled more than 2.1 billion historical records all in a single location. Archives also partners with other leading family history websites to provide a comprehensive resource for researching your family history. Archives.com is free to try for seven days, allowing anyone to explore the benefits of membership without risk or obligation. For more information and to start discovering your family history, please visit http://www.archives.com/.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with more than 1.8 million paying subscribers. More than 9 billion records have been added to the site in the past 15 years. Ancestry users have created more than 34 million family trees containing approximately 4 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship site, Ancestry.com offers several localized Web sites designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.

About Inflection

Inflection is a Big Data and e-commerce startup headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley. Leveraging its proprietary technology platform, the company has built innovative data services like Archives.com, PeopleSmart.com, and Identity.com. Inflection was founded in 2006 and is backed by tier-one venture capitalists Josh Hannah of Matrix Partners and Greg Sands of Sutter Hill Ventures.

Contact: Julie Hill, [email protected], 650.618.9910

SOURCE Archives.com