Taboola.com Ltd.

Taboola was founded in 2007 by Adam Singolda in Israel. Initially, the company focused on developing a recommendation engine for video content. Taboola raised $1.5 million in funding in November 2007, and moved its headquarters to New York City. By 2010, Taboola expanded its technology to include recommendations for text-based articles and slideshows.

The company subsequently raised $4.5 million in November 2008 and $9 million in August 2011. In February 2013, Taboola raised $15 million in Series D funding. In December 2013, the company launched "Taboola Choice," allowing users to filter unwanted recommendations.

In May 2014, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Division (NAD) requested that Taboola clarify its "sponsored content" disclosures following a complaint regarding the conspicuousness of its labeling. In August 2014, Taboola acquired a California-based programmatic advertising company called Perfect Market.

In February 2015, Taboola raised $117 million in a Series E funding round. In May of that year, Taboola announced additional funding from Baidu for an undisclosed amount.

By 2016, Taboola widgets were embedded in 41 of the top 50 news sites globally, including The Guardian and CNN. Taboola acquired Convert Media, a recommendation engine for video content, in July 2016, and Commerce Sciences, a website personalization firm, in January 2017.

By 2018, the company focused on brand safety, establishing monitoring teams in 30 languages and partnering with industry bodies like IAB, Moat, TAG, IAS, and DoubleVerify.

By 2019, Taboola provided 450 billion recommendations per month, due to adoption by major news websites, like The Weather Company. Following a failed merger attempt with competitor Outbrain in 2019–2020, Taboola became a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq on June 30, 2021, via a merger with ION Acquisition Corp. at a valuation of approximately $2.6 billion.

On 23 July 2021, Taboola announced the acquisition of Connexity, a e-commerce and retail-focused advertising technology company, for $800M from Symphony Technology Group.

In February 2022, Taboola was awarded the Gold Standard 2.0 Certification by IAB UK. Despite these efforts, a January 2024 study suggested that ads from various vendors, including Taboola, were still appearing on "Made for Advertising" (MFA) websites; the company subsequently expanded its use of third-party filters intended to improve inventory quality.

In July 2022, Taboola completed the acquisition of Gravity R&D, a Budapest-based personalization technology company. As part of the acquisition, Taboola established a new research and development hub in Hungary focused on its AI, SmartBid, and e-commerce personalization.

Yahoo partnership

On November 28, 2022, Taboola announced that it had signed a 30-year, exclusive commercial agreement with Yahoo!. Under the deal, Taboola will exclusively power native advertising on all of Yahoo's digital properties globally, such as Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! News, AOL and Engadget, with Taboola Ads also available to buy through the Yahoo DSP. Yahoo is receiving 24.99% of Taboola's total issued and outstanding shares as part of the agreement, as well as one representative on the Taboola Board of Directors.

In early 2025, Taboola shifted its focus to becoming a performance advertising engine. In February 2025, the company launched Realize, a performance marketing platform designed to deliver measurable outcomes like lead generation and purchases across premium publisher and OEM inventory. In April 2026, the company launched Realize+, an AI-powered ad optimization system, Decision Engine, including an autonomous ad creative and management feature, Element Generator, to automate campaign adjustments.