Taboola And Outbrain End Talks To Merge After Nearly A Year

Source: Outbrain

Nearly a year after announcing a deal to unite, merger talks between digital advertising platforms Taboola and Outbrain have ended.

The companies place content boxes with headlines such as “8 Celebs Who Have Severe Illnesses” or “I Gave HelloFresh A Taste. Here’s Why I’m Never Going Back” and also deliver traditional web ads, pulling in revenue for the publisher websites that they sit on. The end of the merger talks were first reported by Israeli publications and confirmed to CNBC by a source familiar with the deal.

The companies announced the merger in October 2019, saying that together they would reach 2 billion people a month and give advertisers more “meaningful choice” outside of the “walled gardens” of Facebook and Google, which dominate the digital advertising ecosystem. In the terms of the original deal, Outbrain shareholders would have received shares representing 30% of the combined company plus $250 million in cash, the companies said at the time.

The talks ended after the companies failed to agree on revised deal terms.

According to Yaron Galai, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Outbrain, this isn’t the outcome any of the companies anticipated for this process and now Outbrain Sails Ahead: Stronger, Faster, Focused.

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