Outbrain to Double Staff in New York and Israel
Content recommendation start-up Outbrain plans to hire as many 90 employees over the next year after raising $35 million in new financing last month. The 76-person company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in New York.
Outbrain makes widgets for Internet publishers that both recommend articles from the site a reader is viewing as well as external links. For instance, at the bottom of this page, you'll see "suggested stories" from FINS, as well as links "from around the Web."
Publishers who install the widget get the "suggested stories" for free. If they want, they can also post the "around the Web" links. When a reader clicks on an external link, which has been paid for by a third-party, both Outbrain and the publisher share in the proceeds. Outbrain's customers include many major publishers, including CNN.com.
The company takes a unique approach to recommending stories to readers, said Chief Operating Officer David Sasson. Rather than just post links to stories that are related to the one the user is reading, the algorithm takes into account browsing history on the site.
"What we found through data and experimentation is that on a lot of sites people aren't interested in reading about the same thing" that they're already reading about, Sasson said. The company has invested $64 million into their recommendation technology, he said.
Engineering hires will take place mostly in Netanya, Israel, where the company's chief technology officer and research and development is based. Front and back end engineers, along with Java developers and user experience and interface designers will be in high demand, Sasson said. There are also openings for engineers with experience in big data and distributed systems.
In New York, openings exist for business development, account services and sales jobs. Positions are also open in Chicago, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and London.
Cash and equity compensation at the company is competitive, Sasson said. He declined to discuss the company's revenue.
