Meta sells Giphy to Shutterstock for USD 53 million

Shutterstock has acquired Giphy, the animated-images platform, from Meta Platforms for USD 53 million in net paid cash.

Meta had to comply with UK’s competition regulator who required Meta to sell Giphy. This was due to concerns that Meta could limit or deny competitors, including Snapchat and Twitter, access to the world’s largest GIF library’s contents.

Meta previously purchased Giphy in 2020 for a staggering amount of USD 400 million estimate.

As part of the deal with Shutterstock, Meta will retain access to Giphy’s library across its products.

Shutterstock expects the deal to close next month, with Giphy contributing “minimal” revenue this year. However, the company plans to increase revenue from Giphy starting in 2024.

Giphy is known for having the world’s largest repository of animated images, or GIFs, and web-based stickers. These are used on popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Microsoft Teams.

With the acquisition of Giphy, Shutterstock will gain access to about 1.7 billion daily users—generating about 1.3 billion search queries daily—and expand its content library to include GIFs and stickers.

pic.twitter.com/MZzfdR5xIW

— GIPHY (@GIPHY) May 23, 2023

According to Shutterstock, Giphy’s content library powers more than 15 billion daily media impressions, supplied by verified media partners like Disney, NBC, Netflix, NFL, MLB, and NBA, as well as individual artists.

The deal will also help Shutterstock’s generative AI and metadata strategy, enabling the company to use Giphy’s library to gain training data for future AI-based products.

Additionally, the acquisition will allow Shutterstock to expand beyond professional marketing and advertising use cases and expand into casual conversations.

Shutterstock plans to use its unique capabilities in content and metadata monetization, generative AI, studio production, and creative automation to commercialize its GIF library and roll out this offering to customers.

Shutterstock’s CEO, Paul Hennessy in a press release, called the acquisition “an exciting next step” in the company’s journey towards becoming an end-to-end creative platform.