Ancestry acquires iMemories

Family history giant Ancestry announced its acquisition of iMemories, a media digitization and cloud-based content preservation services company. This is an important next step in enabling Ancestry to deliver on its mission to connect everyone to their past so they can discover, preserve and share their unique family stories. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. JEGI CLARITY + LEONIS represented iMemories in this transaction.

iMemories transforms analog media—including home movies, films, videotapes, photos, slides, and negatives —into high-quality digital formats that can be streamed on your smartphone, tablet, computer, or Smart TV with the iMemories app.

“We’re thrilled to welcome iMemories to Ancestry as we make family history more visual, emotional, and accessible,” said Howard Hochhauser, President & CEO of Ancestry. “By combining Ancestry’s leadership in family history with iMemories’ expertise in media digitization, we’re empowering people to preserve their most meaningful moments and bring their family stories to life in powerful new ways.”

“Joining forces with Ancestry opens an exciting new chapter for iMemories,” said Mark Rukavina, founder and CEO of iMemories. “Together, we’re redefining how families experience their history—making it easier than ever to preserve treasured memories and pass them on for generations to come.”

Headquartered in a 400,000-square-foot facility in Scottsdale, Arizona, iMemories has built a trusted reputation for more than 20 years, serving over one million customers and digitizing more than 100 million assets. Founded in 2006, the company was purchased by Lifetouch in 2016. Just two years later, however, the acquisition of Lifetouch by Shutterfly rendered the company as a poor fit since Shutterfly had its own cloud storage platform. Within a couple of months, Rukavina and longtime executive Steve Krell bought back the company. At the time, Rukavina told the Dead Pixels Society that the continued growth of the archiving business drove the decision to reacquire the business: “This is the first time I’ve reacquired a previous acquisition,” he says. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Looking ahead, with iMemories, Ancestry will not only digitize family photos, videos, slides, and films, but enable customers to seamlessly add them to their family tree, enhancing discoveries with a new layer of emotional richness. And with the help of AI-powered tools, those family stories will become even more vivid, dynamic, and personal.

The acquisition follows the trend of digitization companies aligning with online storage or archiving companies. Capture by YesVideo has (non-exclusively) aligned with Google Photos since 2022. More recently, ScanCafe announced a partnership with MyHeritage.