Outbrain Joins Nasdaq with $160m Float

Content discovery and personalisation platform Outbrain has become a public company, via an IPO of 8m shares of common stock. The firm began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol OB, on Friday.

Outbrain combines delivery of personalized online, mobile and video content with data to help publishers understand and engage audiences. In the past few years it has acquired AdNgin, which offers reader recommendations based on individuals' visual preferences; and native advertising specialist Ligatus.

Shares went on sale to the public at $20 each giving gross proceeds of c.$160m, and underwriters have been granted a 30-day option to purchase an additional 1.2m from Outbrain at this price. Co-CEOs Yaron Galai (pictured top) and David Kostman (pictured below) rang the exchange's opening bell on Friday, and Kostman said 'it's been an exciting journey, with the ability to go through an IPO in a traditional way'. The latter refers to the filing of a registration statement on Form S-1 with the SEC, as opposed to joining via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which has been widely used of late - including by video ad and analytics tech firm Innovid last month.

Web site: www.outbrain.com .