MyHeritage.com, a relatively heavily-funded Israeli startup operating a huge family-based social network, has moved to acquire Bliscy.pl from Poland’s Internet publishing companyWirtualna Polska to solidify its position in the Polish family history market.
The acquisition translates to growth of MyHeritage’s family network to 56 million registered users and roughly 760 million profiles.
The move follows the company’s acquisition of several other family networks in 2010,including OSN and its Polish site MoiKrewni.pl. Merging Bliscy.pl with MyHeritage.pl, the Polish website of MyHeritage.com, essentially unites Poland’s two competing family history sites.
The company basically enables people to explore their family history, share photos and to keep in touch with relatives online.
So why the focus on Poland? As Europe’s sixth largest economy, MyHeritage.com points out, Poland is an economic power house within Central Europe, possessing more than 40 percent of 500 of the region’s largest companies measured by turnover. The country has a GDP growth rate that ranks amongst the highest within the European Union.
The number of ethnic Poles living abroad is estimated to be some 20 million, with the largest concentrations of 10 million and 1.6 million living in the USA and Germany.
Over 2.6 million Polish users are now on MyHeritage.com.
The family tree data, including more than 6.5 million family tree profiles created by more than half a million Bliscy.pl users, will be moved onto private family sites on MyHeritage.com in July 2011, subject to user approval.
MyHeritage.com is backed by Index Ventures and Accel Partners.
No comments:
Post a Comment