How much did Summit Partners pay to acquire the Israeli firm Answers? That’s a question that could easily appear on the popular Q&A platform. The answer: $127 million, cash.

The Israeli company operates a user-generated questions-and-answers database through its website Answers.com, and earns almost all its revenue from advertising on the website.

Israel21c chose Answers.com as one of the top Israeli technologies transforming the Web in 2010.

AFCV Holdings, a portfolio company of Summit Partners, will be delisting Answers, which was a public company from the NASDAQ, and taking the company private.

According to the research firm comScore, Answers.com had about 52 million unique visitors in the United States in December 2010, and 87 million worldwide. At the last count, in November 2010, the site had 5.5 million registered users and was providing about 10 million answers to posed questions.

Founded by CEO Bob Rosenschein in 1999 as a desktop software company called GuruNet, Answers.com was launched in January 2005. The site started out as a one-stop, pre-research online hub that aggregated licensed content from different reference resources, including Barron’s and Miriam-Webster, until November 2006 when the company acquired FAQ Farm, a user-generated Q&A site.

“After an exciting six years as a public company, we are very pleased to achieve considerable value for our investors. This agreement is also a positive for our community members. The integrity and commitment of our company to our products remain unchanged, as we continue our mission of creating the ultimate destination for answers,” said Bob Rosenschein, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Answers.com.

Rosenschein said that the acquisition price was 33% over the company’s average closing stock price over the past 90 days. Answers.com’s stockholders still have to consider and vote on the proposed merger and merger agreement. But the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011.

In his statement following news of the acquisition, Rosenschein said that the mission of Answers.com, which is to provide the best Q&A product on the web, will stay the same and the company will continue to focus on product development and improvement.

Answers recently launched an iPhone app, a free fast-paced trivia game dubbed blufr, and began including video answers courtesy of AOL-acquired video network, 5min Media.