MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia
Israeli genealogy company MyHeritage has been sold for $600 million. That, at least, is the sum cited by anonymous sources in reports in both Globes and TechCrunch. The buyer is American private equity giant Francisco Partners. News of the sale comes as MyHeritage launches a new feature called Deep Nostalgia.
Founded in 2003 by its CEO, entrepreneur and family historian Gilad Japhet, MyHeritage offers users a platform for exploring their family histories, uncovering ethnic origins, finding new relatives, and gaining valuable health insights. MyHeritage declares that it empowers users to build their family trees and make family connections.
The company boasts 104 million users around the world.
“When I founded the company from my home 18 years ago, I had a clear vision that drove me, and continues to drive me today — to make family history discovery easier using technology and to unlock the fun in genealogy: the human pursuit that bonds people,” said Gilad Japhet, in a statement. “With the help of an excellent and dedicated team, years of hard work, and with constant technological innovation, we created new and exciting ways for people to learn about their origins.
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With our new Deep Nostalgia™, you can see how a person from an old photo could have moved and looked if they were captured on video! Read more: https://t.co/ZwUwzJRQ26 #RootsTech #RootsTechConnect pic.twitter.com/LERXhrqiut
— MyHeritage (@MyHeritage) February 25, 2021
As for Deep Nostalgia, MyHeritage states that its new feature animates the faces in still photos. So what does this mean exactly? The company says that Deep Nostalgia will give family history a “fresh new perspective by producing a realistic depiction of how a person could have moved and looked if they were captured on video.”MyHeritage boasts that it is the only company to offer a complete suite of features for colorizing, restoring, enhancing, and now animating historical photos.
“You’ll have a ‘wow moment’ when you see a treasured family photo come to life with Deep Nostalgia,” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. “Seeing our beloved ancestors’ faces come to life in a video simulation lets us imagine how they might have been in reality, and provides a profound new way of connecting to our family history.”
