Taboola, the online advertising company that is known for the “Around the Web” and “Recommended For You” boxes at the bottom of many online articles, is going public.
Taboola has entered into a definitive merger agreement with SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) ION Acquisition Corp. (IACA), that is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.
IACA shares were trading 24% higher at the time of writing.
The combined company will trade under the ticker “TBLA” and will operate under the Taboola name. The valuation of Taboola post-merger is estimated to be around $2.6 billion, and the company expects to have $600 million of cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at closing.
Founded in 2007, Taboola has built more than 13,000 advertiser relationships with the likes of CNBC, NBC News, Business Insider, The Independent and El Mundo. Taboola provides over one trillion monthly recommendations to 516 million daily active users and has offices across 18 cities including Tel Aviv and New York.
Adam Singolda, Founder and CEO at Taboola, said, “Taboola is embarking on an exciting new journey as a public company, a milestone only made possible by years of trusted partnerships with tens of thousands of digital properties and advertisers who I want to personally thank for believing in Taboola and me for years.”
Singolda went on to describe his vision for Taboola. “Over the next 10 years I see Taboola growing to power recommendations for anything, such as eCommerce, games, applications, and I see those recommendations everywhere, on every device. They will live on our connected TVs at home, recommending shows people love, as well as in people’s cars surfacing content they love, podcasts, and text-to-audio from the open web,” he explained.
ION CEO, Gilad Shany, confirmed his excitement about the merger saying, “We were looking to merge with a global technology leader with Israeli DNA and we found that in Taboola… We are excited to join in the early innings of this growth journey alongside a tenured executive team with a strong track-record of exceptional execution.”
In 2021, Taboola plans to invest more than $100 million in further developing and expanding its artificial intelligence, eCommerce, TV, and device manufacturing initiatives.
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