Content discovery platforms Taboola and Outbrain to merge

Taboola and Outbrain have agreed a merger
Taboola and Outbrain, a pair of content discovery and native advertising platforms, have agreed to merge, bringing their combined reach to almost 2bn people a month. The pair hope to provide ‘enhanced advertising efficacy’ and help news organisations and other digital properties to find growth using their products.

Upon closure of deal, Adam Singolda, the founder and CEO of Taboola, will take up the role of CEO of the combined company, which will operate under the Taboola name. The branding, however, will reflect the two companies.

“Over the past decade, I’ve admired Outbrain and the innovation that Yaron Galai, Ori Lahav and the rest of the Outbrain team have brought to the marketplace. By joining forces, we’ll be able to create a more robust competitor to Facebook and Google, giving advertisers a more meaningful choice,” said Singolda.

Outbrain’s shareholders will receive shares for 30 per cent of the combined company plus $250m in cash. The board of directors will be made up of current Taboola and Outbrain management.

“We are excited to partner with Taboola. Both Outbrain and Taboola have a shared mission and vision of supporting quality journalism globally and delivering meaningful value to the open web marketplace,” said Yaron Galai, co-founder and co-CEO of Outbrain. “Ori [Lahav] and I had a vision of helping people discover quality content online, and we see a tremendous opportunity in joining forces in order to bring the next wave of innovation to our publisher partners and advertisers. I’m confident that together, we will be able to further our mission, which we call our Lighthouse, of bringing the best, most trustworthy content discovery capabilities to users around the world.”