Taboola Raises $4.5M, Scores CNN Deal

Taboola, a video discovery startup that launched at NewTeeVee Live 2007, announced today it has raised $4.5 million in second-round funding from return backer Evergreen Venture Partners and angel investors. The round brings the Tel Aviv-based company’s total funding to $6 million.

Taboola also today formally launched its “ViDiscovery” product, which uses context, content analysis and collaborative filtering to recommend videos. So when users watch a video on customer sites like CNN (a big win, first acknowledged by the company today and previously noted by TechCrunch), 5Min, aniBoom, AsktheBuilder and Sclipo, a pop-up within the site’s player offers them similar videos, and “People who watched this video also liked” recommendations.

The effect is a 25-35 percent increase in video views, a 30-42 percent increase in complete video views, and a 15 percent increase in distinct videos viewed across a site’s inventory, according to Taboola. The company makes money by offering targeted ads among recommended videos. It’s a bit of a rough business model, but getting a site like CNN to include your line of your code in its player is nothing to sneeze at.