Native advertising firm Taboola has struck a $800 mn acquisition of ecommerce media company, Connexity, in a move that it describes as “one step forward in creating an alternative to walled gardens.”
Connexity clients include Walmart, Wayfair, Skechers, Macy’s, eBay and Otto and willwill enable merchants to reach new clients through Taboola on the open web.
The company reaches more than 100 million unique shoppers per month, via relationships with premium publishers including Condé Nast, DotDash, Hearst, Vox Media, Meredith, and News Corp Australia.
In addition, Connexity allows publishers to integrate more than 750 million product offers on their websites, providing a new revenue stream.
“We’re so excited to welcome the Connexity team to our Taboola family, today is a big day,” said Adam Singolda, CEO and founder, Taboola. “The rise of social commerce proves the value of commerce alongside content, and with Connexity, Taboola is primed to bring this value to the open web. e-Commerce is the future of the open web, consumers will be buying outside of Amazon, on publishers’ sites next to trusted editorial content a lot more than they are today. Amazon has millions of merchants, but merchants mainly have Amazon. That changes today. Combining Taboola and Connexity’s technologies is one step forward in creating an alternative to walled gardens.”
“Today, our vision of helping brands easily connect with customers and helping publishers grow gets supercharged with Taboola,” said Bill Glass, CEO of Connexity. “This is a shared vision for both companies, which makes this deal a natural fit and a huge win for both of our customer sets. I want to thank all of the team members as well as our loyal customers and partners who have helped Connexity pioneer its space and grow over the past 20 years.”
Today’s deal represents Taboola’s fifth acquisition and adds over 200 people to their team, bringing the number of total employees to approximately 1,600. Bill Glass, Connexity CEO, and the Connexity management team will lead the newly formed business unit at Taboola.
Connexity generated $158 million of revenue, $63 million of ex-TAC Gross profit and $28 million of Adjusted EBITDA in 2019, growing to $176 million of revenue, $78 million of ex-TAC Gross profit and $38 million of Adjusted EBITDA in 2020, driven by expansion of its merchant customer base, as well as the successful integration of Skimlinks’ market-leading commerce content technologies.
