Outbrain Raises $35 Million USD in Series D Funding; Led by Index Ventures

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Dec 14, 2011) - Outbrain, the leading content discovery platform, today announced that it has closed its Series D round of funding of $35 million, bringing its total financing to $64 million. Index Ventures led the round with participation from Outbrain's existing investors: Carmel Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

As Outbrain extends its presence in both the online video and mobile web markets, the funding allows the company to accelerate its product line while further investing in business development and global expansion.

Also announced today, Dominique Vidal, partner at Index Ventures, will be joining Outbrain's Board of Directors. Dominique brings with him more than 20 years of experience, including his previous roles as CEO of Yahoo! Europe and founder of Kelkoo.

Outbrain's content recommendations are viewed more than 3.5 billion times each month, generating more than 200 million monthly clicks to high quality content across the leading publisher sites on the web. Outbrain's global publisher roster includes CNN, Fox News, Future Publishing, Hearst, Hachette Filipacchi Media, IPC, Mashable, MSNBC, Reuters UK, Sky News, Slate, Trinity Mirror and Ziff Davis. Outbrain also works with several key brands and agencies including Digitas, Mindshare, P&G, Allstate and American Express.

"Outbrain presents a solution to a problem that online media has been facing since the Internet brought content to the web. Their continued success and vision makes the company an attractive addition to Index's portfolio," said Dominique Vidal, partner at Index Ventures. "It is clear that the company mission to help users discover great content is their top priority, which is why Outbrain has cultivated a leading position in the market."

"Index's deep understanding of our market, and their global footprint, make them an ideal partner for us as we grow our business. Dominique brings Outbrain unique expertise in both online publishing and digital advertising," said Yaron Galai, CEO and co-founder at Outbrain. "We've achieved exceptional milestones this year -- from the acquisition of Surphace out of AOL to the launch of our European offices in London, France and Germany to the rollout of Outbrain for Mobile and Outbrain for Video. Having established a leadership position in all these areas, we are now poised to bring great content to audiences across the United States, Europe and the entire world."

Outbrain is the only content discovery platform that helps publishers increase onsite engagement and revenue while providing their audience with interesting content they may not discover otherwise. Outbrain also provides marketers a scalable, cost efficient way to distribute content on top publisher sites.

About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading venture capital firm active in technology, biotech and clean tech venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology and Life Science sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders. They invest from seed through to growth stage companies. The firm has offices in Geneva, London, San Francisco and Jersey. Index's current portfolio includes Criteo, Boku, Lookout, Mimecast, Ozon, Path, Pentaho, Rightscale, Soundcloud, Storsimple and viagogo. Exits of note include Cloud.com (acquired by Citrix), RPX (NASDAQ: RPXC), Lovefilm (acquired by Amazon), Playfish (acquired by Electronic Arts), MySQL (acquired by Sun), Last.fm (CBS) and Skype. For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com.

About Outbrain
Outbrain (www.outbrain.com) is the leading content discovery platform, reaching a highly engaged audience through distribution on top publisher sites, including CNN, Fox News, Hachette Filipacchi Media, Mashable, MSNBC and Slate. Outbrain provides publishers a service for recommended links to increase traffic and generate revenue. Outbrain also works with brands and agencies including Starcom, Digitas, Mindshare, American Express, P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills and Exxon, offering a way to distribute content alongside publisher's own editorial recommendations. Outbrain acquired content recommendation platform Surphace (formerly known as Sphere) in February 2011. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in New York with offices in London, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, DC, Paris, Hamburg and Netanya, Israel, and is backed by Index Ventures, Carmel Ventures, Gemini Israel Funds, GlenRock Israel, Rhodium and Lightspeed Venture Partners.