MyHeritage to lay off 15% of workforce

Gilad Japhet Photo: MyHeritage
Gilad Japhet Photo: MyHeritage

MyHeritage currently has 500 employees in Israel, the US and Europe.

Israeli online genealogy company MyHeritage is laying off dozens of employees. "Globes" has learned that about 15% of the company’s workforce will be dismissed. MyHeritage currently has 500 employees in Israel, the US and Europe.

MyHeritage was founded in 2003 by CEO Gilad Japhet. The company began as a platform for building family trees and later expanded its activities to family history research, historical databases and DNA tests for locating relatives and information on genetic origin. The company is headquartered in Or Yehuda, and operates in dozens of languages for users around the world.

Over the years, the company has built a database of billions of historical records, including birth, marriage, immigration and census certificates, alongside a large database of family trees. In 2016, the company launched home DNA kits and later expanded its activities to the field of genetic information. During the Covid pandemic, the company also operated a Covid testing laboratory in Israel. In 2021, control of MyHeritage was sold to US investment fund Francisco Partners in a deal that valued the company at about $600 million. As part of the deal, venture capital funds Bessemer, Index, and Excel sold all of their holdings, while many employees exercised options they had held over the years.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 8, 2026.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.

Gilad Japhet Photo: MyHeritage
Gilad Japhet Photo: MyHeritage
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