Internet services provider Baidu has made a multimillion dollar investment in US-based content discovery platform Taboola to extend its series E round, Techcrunch reported earlier today.
Founded in 2007, Taboola’s platform provides recommended content related to that which a user is currently consuming. The technology has been integrated with media websites such as The Atlantic, Business Insider, and USA Today, and delivers more than 200 billion recommendations a month.
The initial $117m tranche of Taboola’s series E round, raised in February this year, was led by Fidelity Management and included media company Advance Publications, internet company Yahoo Japan, consumer goods provider Groupe Arnault and cable operator Comcast, which invested through its Comcast Ventures unit.
Investors in the first tranche also included Marker, Steadfast Capital, and Carlo De Benedetti, chairman of conglomerate Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso.
Taboola had raised a total of $157m ahead of the series E extension, with past investors including Pitango Venture Capital, WGI Group, Evergreen Venture Partners and private investor Eyal Gura.
The series E funding will be used to support Taboola’s continuing international expansion, including China where it currently faces little competition at present.
Adam Singolda, CEO of Taboola, said: “We believe that discovery has massive growth potential in both existing and untapped markets around the world, and we plan to grow this new category even further with Baidu to help change the way people in China discover content they may like and never knew existed.”