Outbrain, a blog and news recommendation engine, has raised $12 million in a second round of funding. New investor Carmel Ventures led the financing, with participation from previous backers Gemini Israel Funds, Lightspeed Venture Partners and GlenRock Israel. The NY-based startup has raised $18 million in total, per CenterNetworks. Fellow content aggregator and contextual targeting service OneSpot picked up its own investment earlier this week, and as Rafat noted, competition in the space is steep. 

SEE ALSO: Outbrain Raises $5 Million First Round For Blog Rating And Recommendations

Outbrain has gained ground on some levels, as media companies including the Chicago Tribune, Discovery Channel, and Sports Illustrated’s Golf.com are already using its story recommendation widget, which can include links to related stories and even RSS feeds. It is also compatible with most of the mainstream blog platforms, including Blogger.com, WordPress and Drupal. Release.