• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 3, 2025

Outbrain has completed its acquisition of Teads for approximately $900 million, consisting of $625 million in cash and 43.75 million Outbrain shares.

Monday's announcement explained how the combined companies will operate under the Teads name, creating one of the largest open internet advertising companies with combined spend of $1.7 billion as of FY24 and reach of 2.2 billion consumers.

David Kostman, Teads CEO of the combined companies, told MediaPost the product teams will come together to create "a much stronger team and depth of data scientists located in three global development centers."

The merger unites two major contextual and interest data sets, powered by AI prediction technology. 

As part of the deal, Outbrain bought Teads from its parent company, Altice Teads, for $1 billion, while Altice Teads will in turn take a minority stake in Outbrain -- now called Teads.

Kostman, who has been at Outbrain since 2017, will serve as chief executive officer.

Jeremy Arditi and Bertrand Quesada will serve as co-presidents. Both were co-chief executive officers at Teads.

The new entity from the combined companies will provide an omnichannel platform to deliver media from branding to performance across all screens such as connected television (CTV), mobile, and web.

The two companies are preliminarily reporting a combined Ex-TAC Gross Profit of $623 million and adjusted EBITDA of $230 million in 2024 including $65-75 million of estimated synergies.

Outbrain provided selected preliminary results for the fourth quarter, in line with previously issued guidance in Outbrain’s November 2024 earnings call, and selected preliminary results for Teads and the combined company. 

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority on Friday cleared the merger on Friday. It initially began probing the companies' transaction last December.