Israel's two large content recommendation companies have announced that they are merging with Taboola paying $250 million to Outbrain, which will receive 30% of the merged company. Taboola will hold the other 70% of the merged company. Taboola founder and CEO Adam Singolda will serve as the CEO of the merged company, which will have 2,000 employees.
There were reports in 2017 that Taboola and Outbrain were in talks about a merger but the two companies were unable to overcome differences. Taboola was founded in 2006 by Singolda and has raised $180 million since then. Its major investors include Catalyst Fund, Fidelity, Pitango, Marker and Eyal Gura.
Outbrain was also founded in 2006 by Yaron Galai and Ori Lahav and has raised $150 million to date. Outbrain currently presents more than 275 billion personally-tailored recommendations including articles, posts, video clips, apps and products for users on content siters including CNN, Sky, the Guardian and Fox News. The company says that it reaches 1.2 billion users each month.
Outbrain and Taboola both work in the field of content recommendation but over the years Outbrain has led the Israeli market because it was the first to operate. Taboola, which subsequently entered the market, found it difficult to get a foothold on its home turf. However has had major success overseas and its strategic partners include the Daily Mail, MSN and USA Today.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 3, 2019
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