Just in case people overlooked this, 23andme is owned by the Mormon church, just like Ancestry.com. They haven’t made their intentions entirely clear on why they’re obsessed with finding out who’s related to who, but I think it has something to do with Jesus in America. Seriously.
A coworker did it earlier this year and she really liked it. Results were easy to understand and she gets updates when some long lost relative pops up. Pretty neat.
Are you sure about that? I thought 23andme was founded by Sergey Brin’s wife. It’s common knowledge that Ancestry.com is owned by the Mormons, but I don’t think 23andme is related/co-owned in any way.
Interesting. I remember hearing from a cousin that we have a ton of relatives in Utah with the mormons, and that when he was putting together some thing on ancestry.com, he went over to chill with the Mormons and they apparently had very thorough records. Curious.
There are several reasons the Mormons publicly say they are interested. The main is that they need a family tree of humanity to offer proxy baptism to dead people. Even the sites that aren’t owned by the church get massive funding from the organization.
Genealogy, the study of one’s ancestors or family history, is one of the most popular hobbies in the world. People of all faiths and nationalities enjoy discovering where they come from. For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, learning about one’s family history is more than just a casual endeavor. Latter-day Saints believe families can be together after this life. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen relationships with all family members, both those who are alive and those who have died.
Latter-day Saints believe that the eternal joining of families is possible through sacred sealing ceremonies that take place in temples. These temple rites may also be performed by proxy for those who have died. Consequently, for Mormons, genealogical research or family history is the essential forerunner for temple work for the dead. In Latter-day Saint belief, the dead have the choice to accept or reject the services performed for them.
The company was founded by Linda Avey, Paul Cusenza and Anne Wojcicki in 2006 to provide genetic testing and interpretation to individual consumers.[11][12] In 2007, Google invested $3,900,000 in the company, along with Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures.[13] Wojcicki was married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the time.[7]
Cusenza left the company in 2007 and was appointed CEO of Nodal Exchange in 2008.[14] Avey left the company in 2009 and co-founded Curious, Inc. in 2011.[15]
In 2012, 23andMe raised $50 million in a Series D venture round, almost doubling its existing capital of $52.6 million.[16][17][18] In 2015, 23andMe raised $115 million in a Series E offering, increasing its total capital to $241 million.[5][19][20]
The company sponsored the PBS TV series “9 Months That Made You”.[21]
The company had not turned a profit as of October 2015.[5]
Another $250 million of financing was raised in September 2017, led by new investor Sequoia Capital. Sequoia is joined in the financing by new investors Euclidean Capital, Altimeter Capital and the Wallenberg Foundation.[22]
Apparently Angelina didn’t really need to do it…
Sad.
I actually cover companies in this space. We’re very bullish on the longer term potential of these companies and similar ones. Note that over multiple years, ancestry has had one of the top cyber monday items. Consumer genomics is hot.
whats the reason why 23andme cant actually give you detailed analysis about your dna?
you have to go to other sites and apps to decode it for you
They all use a microarray chip that has thousands of genes on them which they probe for. They look at different genes for whatever they claimed. For example, theres a company that claims that different people will have preferences for different wines. The wine company is looking at the genes that are responsible for the bitter taste, the company checks the gene expression levels and decides whether you like a bitter or sweeter wine. Most of these claims have very little scientific backup. This stuff is gimicky. The other areas of consumer genomics are hot though and have better backing and are more readily applicable. Ancestry has a very large library to compare against so they can be pretty accurate about ethnic background. Ancestry used to offer more but the gov said they couldn’t and that a doctor would have to.
http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/depth-consumer-genomics-and-road-legitimacy
reference to the hcb?