For years, OpenWeb represented an unusually ambitious version of the Israeli startup story. The company, originally called Spot.IM, was founded in 2012 with the simple proposition that publishers should be able to reclaim the conversations and relationships with their readers that had migrated to Facebook and other social networks.
By 2021, that proposition had turned OpenWeb into a unicorn. By 2022, the company was valued at $1.5 billion and had raised $393 million. It was working with more than 1,000 publishers and reaching more than 100 million monthly active users. Its investors included Insight Partners, Georgian, The New York Times Company, Dentsu and Samsung Next.
Four years later, OpenWeb is seeking insolvency protection from the…