Israeli start-up ClarityRay, which develops tools to assist web publishers to circumvent ad blockers and to combat theft of advertising space has been sold to US Internet giant Yahoo! for $15-20 million dollars in cash. This is Yahoo!'s second acquisition in Israel in a month.
ClarityRay was founded by its CEO Ido Yablonka, Vadim Zak and Guy Pitelko, all of whom served in the IDF Intelligence Corps.
ClarityRay offers two products designed to counter the loss of revenue caused by ad blockers. One allows sites to collect a monthly payment from surfers who do not wish to see advertisements, while the other is a technological solution that enables content publishers to circumvent the add-ons that block advertisements.
Yahoo! said in a statement, "We’ve been working on building up security capabilities and making Yahoo a safer place for users and partners. Advertising is an essential part of our business here at Yahoo, and we’re committed to getting it right. ClarityRay is a company with deep expertise in ad-malware detection and prevention. The bottom line for Yahoo is that search is going to get better and safer for users, and advertising will become more reliable and profitable for partners."
A month ago, Yahoo! acquired Israeli video-streaming start-up RayV for an undisclosed sum.
ClarityRay published the following statement on its website: "Our vision has always been making the eco-system safe, compliant and sustainable for consumers, publishers and advertisers. We helped the online advertising industry take a big step towards that direction by identifying, measuring, and solving many of its unseen hurdles inhibiting that. We brought traffic clarity to an amazing roster of clients, with our findings becoming an industry standard.
"Joining Yahoo now will allow us to make use of that momentum and take the next steps (or rather, leaps) towards that vision, and we couldn't be more excited. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity enables the mass scaling of our technology, impact and ideas to the absolute forefront of our field, while working with an amazing team who shares our passion. We're proud to call Yahoo 'home'."
ClarityRay did not respond to the report.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 17, 2014
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