Ancestry.com Pulls in Another $33.2 Million

Ancestry.com, one of the Web’s leading genealogy sites, has obtained a cool $33.2 million (US$) in second round funding.

The Orem, Utah-based company said Tuesday that the oversubscribed second round of financing included industry heavyweights Compaq Computers and America Online, as well as French conglomerate Group Arnault. Ancestry.com has recently signed strategic initiatives with Compaq and AOL.

Like an old family relative, Internet venture firm CMGI was also a key participant in the funding. The firm was one of the original investors in Ancestry.com and is a 30 percent stakeholder. The company said that CMGI maintained its “significant” equity stake through the latest round of financing.

Intel Corporation and a number of other venture capital firms have also participated in funding Ancestry.com, which has now drawn $45.5 million in investments since December 1998.

“It has been a pleasure to be a part of the phenomenal ‘genetic’ growth of Ancestry.com’s traffic and the development of the outstanding MyFamily.com features,” said Peter Mills, managing partner of CMGI’s @ventures group. “It is now the most robust and dynamic family community site on the Web.”

All in the Family

Ancestry.com is a 15-year-old publisher of print and electronic products for the genealogy market. To many, the company is best known as the publisher of “The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy.”

In 1996, Ancestry.com launched its Web site with the largest collection of searchable genealogy data, now some 1,700 databases containing over 276 million records.

All of those records are paying off. According to Media Metrix, Ancestry.com is the Web’s most popular genealogy site, attracting close to one million unique visitors a month. It attracts 90,000 paid subscribers, who fork over $19.95 a quarter or $59.95 annually.

The company also established the previously-mentioned MyFamily.com, which provides free, private family Web sites and has grown to nearly 1.5 million members in less than eight months.

Earlier this month, Ancestry.com announced that it had formed a strategic alliance with Compaq. Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com will feature Compaq as the premier personal computer manufacturer on their sites. They will also be linked through a co-branded Web site, undertake joint online and offline marketing initiatives and share revenues produced by computer sales and subscriptions on their sites.