NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - March 30, 2011) - Outbrain, the leading content discovery platform, today announced the expansion of its executive team. The additions of both Gilad de Vries as vice president of brands and agencies and Josh Feller as vice president of business development will support Outbrain's momentum among leading online publishers. The news comes in the midst of a period of massive growth for the company, which recently announced $11M in Series C funding, the acquisition of competitor Surphace from AOL and expansion into the UK.
De Vries brings with him more than 19 years of experience working both in digital media and with technology start-ups, most recently as the vice president of digital media and principal at leading Israeli venture capital firm, Carmel Ventures. As one of Outbrain's advisors at Carmel, de Vries was so impressed with the company that he decided to come on as a full time employee to accelerate Outbrain's traction with brand marketers and advertising agencies. Additional past experience includes roles as senior director of marketing and product management at Comverse Technology, Inc. and director of operations at Odigo.
Feller joins Outbrain as vice president of business development, where he will oversee distribution and revenue for the company's publisher business, which includes Condé Nast, USA Today and Newsweek. He brings to the position a wealth of expertise in online media and advertising from past roles at Microsoft and Quigo. With Josh's arrival, John LoGiocco has been promoted to senior vice president of sales and business development.
"A highly talented, driven and experienced executive team is crucial to Outbrain's continued success, which is why we're committed to bringing leaders like Josh and Gilad onboard," said Outbrain CEO Yaron Galai. "2011 has already proven to be an exceptionally promising year for us, and by expanding our leadership team, we're in a position to capitalize on our recent momentum and truly dominate the content discovery space."
About Outbrain
Outbrain (www.outbrain.com) is the leading content recommendation platform, reaching a highly engaged audience through distribution on top publisher sites, including USA Today, iVillage, Boston.com, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, TheStreet, The Boston Globe and Slate. Outbrain provides publishers a service for recommended links to increase traffic and generate revenue, and marketers a way to their 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 R&D in Netanya, Israel, and is backed by Carmel Ventures, Gemini Israel Funds, GlenRock Israel, Rhodium and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Contact Information:
Contact:
LaunchSquad for Outbrain
Melissa Klein or Lindsey Scott
Outbrain (at) launchsquad (dot) com
212-564-3665