Answers.com Acquired By AFCV Holdings For $127 Million

As the social Q&A space heats up, with a lot of attention going to new sites like Quora and the mobile searcher ChaCha, Answers.com (NSDQ: ANSW) has decided to sell itself to PE firm AFCV Holdings for $127 million in an all stock deal. The transaction is expected to close sometime in Q2.

Unlike Quora and Facebook’s Q&A, service, which relies on a dialog among people within a social network, Answers.com combines responses from general internet users with information from reference sites like Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and the American Heritage Dictionary.

Answers.com has been around a while and has been trying to ride this latest wave of interest in the Q&A format. The other established entity in the space, IAC’s Ask.com, has tried several different formats to turn itself into a stronger business, but has had difficulty gaining traction.

It’s not clear what AFCV plans to do with Answers.com, but at least the timing is right to try something new. Release