Israel’s Taboola Goes Public Via SPAC At $2.6B Valuation

Israeli content recommendation firm Taboola began trading on the Nasdaq late last month, following its merger with special purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) ION Acquisition Corp. The company announced it has become a publicly listed company trading on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol “TBLA.”

Taboola began trading at a valuation of some $2.6 billion.

“We believe Taboola has a unique combination of an outstanding leadership team, vast market opportunity and an attractive business model that combines growth with high profitability,” said Gilad Shany, CEO of ION. “We were thrilled to discover our shareholders hold the same view through their overwhelming support for our business combination,” continued Gilad. “We look forward to the next phase of our partnership with Taboola as it commences its journey in the public markets and further cements its leadership position in the Open Web.”

Taboola was founded in 2007 with headquarters in New York and is headed by CEO Adam Singolda. As a content discovery and advertising platform, Taboola partners with publishers such as CNBC, The Daily Mail and USA Today among over 9,000 digital properties to drive audience monetization and engagement through the respective sites’ own editorial content as well as recommendations paid by advertisers.

Taboola says its recommendation platform, powered by advanced AI algorithms, provides over 1 trillion recommendations a month to approximately 500 million daily users.

In 2019, Taboola and rival Israeli content recommendation firm Outbrain announced that they were merging in a bid to challenge Google and Facebook’s advertising duopoly. As part of the deal, Taboola was set to pay $250 million for 30 percent of Outbrain’s shares and will hold a 70 percent stake in the merged entity,

Nearly a year later, the deal fell through largely due to market changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic., according to people familiar with the matter.

Outbrain filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week for a proposed initial public offering.