In a blog post released on Friday, Facebook Inc. announced that it was acquiring Giphy – a website for creating and sharing animated images, or otherwise known as GIFs. While Facebook has said it won’t disclose the terms of the deal, according to the news website Axios the sale price was around US$400 million.
In the announcement, Facebook wrote that Giphy would now be “ … joining the Facebook company today as part of the Instagram team.”
It is not the first time Facebook has made an acquisition offer with the tech company reportedly making its first offer in 2015. Prior to the sale, Giphy had raised around a reported US$150 million through five different funding rounds, backed by investor groups including DFJ Growth, and GV.
According to Facebook, 50% of the traffic that Giphy already receives comes from its platforms such as the Facebook app itself, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. The goal of the sale is to make it even easier to send GIFs and stickers in Instagram stories and direct messages.
In the post, Facebook wrote that it intends to continue “ … investing further in [Giphy’s] technology and relationships with content and API partners.” Several of Giphy’s current API partners, such as Twitter, Reddit, Slack and Pinterest compete directly with the tech giant.
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