Social media giant Facebook has today acquired one of the most popular GIF creation and sharing websites – Giphy, which will now be a part of the Instagram team.
The news was first reported by Axios and got subsequently confirmed by Facebook in an official blog post. While Facebook did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, Axios‘ report suggests that the company had a valuation of around $400 million.
The acquisition is part of Facebook’s bigger plans to integrate Giphy’s extensive GIF library into Instagram and other Facebook-owned apps. In an official blog post announcing the acquisition, Facebook claims almost 50 percent of Giphy’s traffic comes from Facebook’s apps and half of that comes from Instagram alone. “By bringing Instagram and GIPHY together, we can make it easier for people to find the perfect GIFs and stickers in Stories and Direct,” says Vishal Shah, Instagram’s VP of Product in a blog post.
Facebook, however, will continue allowing Giphy users to upload and share GIFs just like how it is now. The service isn’t being folded and shuttered for the world because Facebook is not Apple. Giphy’s current integrations with Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok are said to be in place as well.
“People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY’s APIs, and GIPHY’s creative community will still be able to create great content,” Shah added in the blog post.
Giphy’s primary competition in the GIF sharing space, Tenor, got acquired by Google in 2018. With Facebook’s ownership of Giphy, the competition between Tenor and Giphy is bound to get fierce and we will have to wait to see how that turns out.
