Yahoo to buy 25% stake in Taboola as part of 30-year advertising deal

Yahoo announced that the company will buy a 24.99% stake in Taboola. Under the terms of the deal, Taboola is becoming Yahoo’s native advertising partner through a 30-year exclusive commercial agreement announced on Monday.

Throughout the deal, Israeli-based content discovery and native advertising platform Taboola will be the exclusive provider of native advertising across all of Yahoo’s digital properties, driving more than 800 billion impressions, and will be available to buy through the Yahoo DSP. Yahoo, which has been owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management since a $5 billion acquisition last year, has approximately 900 million monthly active users.

“This win-win partnership will meaningfully accelerate our growth flywheel, expanding our reach to more users on the open web with high-intent traffic to provide world-class solutions for advertisers, publishers, merchants and users in a cookie-less world,” said Adam Singolda, Founder and CEO of Taboola. “For publishers in the open web, we’ll be able to invest even more in driving revenue, engagement and audience growth moving forward, empowering performance, brand advertisers, merchants as well as agencies with an immense reach to users in a premium, trusted environment. This partnership is a big step toward achieving our goal of generating $1 billion in ex-TAC* by 2025.”

Following the news, Taboola shares rose 55% to $2.85 in early trading Monday. The partnership is expected to generate $1 billion in annual revenue.

Taboola, which was used by more than 15,000 advertisers to reach more than 500 million daily active users prior to the transaction, acquired e-commerce media platform Connexity for $800 million last year and Gravity R&D in May this year. Following the acquisition of Connexity, Taboola said it is a leader in powering e-commerce recommendations, driving more than 1 million monthly transactions each month.

“Partnering with Taboola enables Yahoo to further enhance the contextual and native offerings within our unified advertising stack,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo. “The partnership also allows Yahoo and Taboola to continue to differentiate in market, improving user, advertiser and publisher experiences across properties, while benefiting from the long-term tailwinds in digital native advertising. Together with Taboola, we will maximize reach and campaign performance for advertisers, enhance monetization opportunities for publishers, and drive improved, privacy-forward experiences for users. As we continue to build the next era of Yahoo, we are thrilled to have strong partners by our side.”

The deal, which has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023.