Tel Aviv-based family tree site MyHeritage, which claims to be “the second largest online destination for families”, has received a $15 million second-round investment from London’s Index Ventures

The site has come out of nowhere but is now available in 25 languages, claims 25 million members, five million family trees and 260 million profiles, and comes with a few technological innovations. MyHeritage already suggested relatives to users from its database, now it’s also launching a face-recognition feature that automatically identifies and tags family members; it can also be used with photos on sites like Flickr, Facebook and Picasa.

Index partner Saul Klein, who joins previous Accel backer Simon Levene on the board, is mincing no words on the investment: “We believe it has the potential to become as important to families as Facebook is for friends and LinkedIn is for professional relationships.” Release.

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