OpenWeb co-founders Nadav Shoval and Roee Goldberg with ADYOULIKE co-founders Julien Verdier, Yohan Elmaalem, Francis Turner, and Dale Lovell (company pic)
OpenWeb, an Israeli startup that develops an audience relationship platform, has acquired ADYOULIKE which offers a global advertising platform for $100 million in cash and stock.
Founded in 2011, ADYOULIKE is a Franco-British global native advertising company headquartered in France with offices in Paris, London, New York, Montpellier and Milan. The company boasts that it offers a new kind of advertising that “respects the form, function and the user experience of the content where it appears.”
This is OpenWeb’s second such acquisition so far this year. In January the company snatched up Hive Media Group, a U.S. digital publisher and engagement platform, for $60 million.
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OpenWeb certainly has the cash on hand for such an acquisition. The company raised 150 million in Series E financing round led by Insight Partners and Georgian Partners last November. That raise put OpenWeb into the coveted unicorn club, a startup with a $1 billion or higher valuation. OpenWeb has raised $220 million to date.
Founded in 2012 by CEO Nadav Shoval and originally called Spot.IM, COO Roee Goldberg and Ishay Green, OpenWeb helps publishers gain independence from traditional social media by “fueling millions of high-quality conversations” across thousands of communities with more than one hundred million monthly users. OpenWeb boasts that its platform offers engagement and conversion funnels that turn casual readers into a community of loyal, active, registered users.
In a blog post, OpenWeb explained the acquisition saying that it was made in order to improve online conversation. “We need to build the social layer of the open internet,” said the company,” a parallel universe to the walled gardens that’s rooted in healthy conversations, transparent first-party data relationships, and mutual prosperity for all stakeholders.”
With the acquisition of ADYOULIKE, OpenWeb boasts that it is bringing capabilities “previously reserved for the walled gardens to the open internet, taking another step closer to making our vision a reality.”
