Taboola, a US-based digital advertising software provider backed by corporates Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), Baidu, Advance Publications, Yahoo Japan and Comcast, agreed to a reverse merger yesterday.
The company is joining forces with ION Acquisition Corp 1, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsored by an affiliate of ION Asset Management, and will get the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing secured by the SPAC in a $225m initial public offering in October 2020.
The transaction is expected to value the combined business at $2.6bn and will be boosted by $285m a private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing that will include $150m in shares bought from undisclosed Taboola shareholders.
Funds affiliated with ION and insurance firm Phoenix Insurance will provide more than 20% of the PIPE, which will include investment and financial services group Fidelity, Baron Capital Group, Hedosophia, Federated Hermes Kaufmann Funds and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock.
Taboola provides digital content recommendation services that help drive advertising and push online users toward relevant advertising. It agreed to a $2bn merger with peer Outbrain in late 2019 only for the deal to be called off in September 2020 over a disagreement in valuations.
The company had secured a total of at least $277m as of a $3m investment by media company DGMT’s Dailymail.com subsidiary in June 2015. Internet group Baidu had supplied an undisclosed amount of series E funding the previous month.
The round’s $117m first tranche was led by Fidelity and backed by media group Advance Publications, internet company Yahoo Japan and Comcast Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of mass media group Comcast.
Groupe Arnault, Marker, Steadfast Capital and Carlo De Benedetti also took part in the series E round, while Pitango Venture Capital, WGI Group, Evergreen Venture Partners and Eyal Gura are among Taboola’s earlier investors.
