Digital advertising company Taboola says it intends to go public through a merger with ION Acquisition Corp, a special procurement corporation.
The company places content boxes on Internet sites with headlines such as “8 Celebrities Who Have Serious Illnesses” or “Look Who’s Going to Bankruptcy in America,” attracting revenue for the publisher. The company says it is used by more than 13,000 advertisers to reach more than 500 million active users daily.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter and the combined company will operate under the name Taboola and trade on the NYSE under the symbol “TBLA”. The transaction gives Taboola a pro forma valuation of approximately $ 2.6 billion.
“The open web is really important, even essential, because it is free and diverse and does not belong to a giant company. Think of every site you love – every game, app on a mobile device or connected TV that lives outside built-in gardens, ”Taboola CEO and founder Adam Singolda wrote on Monday.
“But open web companies depend on walled gardens competing against them with more data, more technology and more relationships with advertisers, while advertisers have no choice but to turn to walled gardens to access users efficiently on a large scale.
He added in the post that the company intends to provide recommendations for “anything” – e-commerce products, apps, games and more – and that the company wants them to be available “anywhere” on “every device, connected TV, car and others. ”
Taboola and competitor Outbrain in October 2019 said they would merge in hopes of becoming a bigger competitor to digital advertising giants such as Google and Facebook. But almost a year later, talks on the merger ended after the companies failed to agree on the revised terms of the deal.
Nominations are open for 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups that use cutting-edge technology to become the next generation of large public companies. send until Friday, February 12, at 15.00 EST.