Facebook acquires popular GIF database GIPHY for reported $400 million
- Facebook is acquiring GIPHY, the popular GIF database, both companies confirmed Friday.
- GIPHY will become part of the Instagram team, and the database will continue to be operational and usable, Facebook said in its blog post.
- According to Axios, Facebook paid $400 million for the acquisition.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Facebook has acquired GIPHY, the searchable database for finding and creating GIFs.
Facebook announced in a blog post Friday that GIPHY would become part of the Instagram team. GIPHY's platform will continue to operate separately and be available for use and uploading GIFs, Facebook said.
Minutes before Facebook's blog post went live, Axios reported Facebook was acquiring GIPHY for $400 million.
"By bringing Instagram and GIPHY together, we can make it easier for people to find the perfect GIFs and stickers in Stories and Direct," Facebook executive Vishal Shah wrote in the post. "A lot of people in our community already know and love GIPHY. In fact, 50% of GIPHY's traffic comes from the Facebook family of apps, half of that from Instagram alone."
Prior to the deal, GIPHY and Instagram have already worked together to integrate GIFs into Instagram Stories and Direct Messages.
"Based on the success of those collaborations (and many others) we know that there are exciting times ahead of us," GIPHY wrote Friday in a blog post on Medium. "GIPHY's GIFs, Stickers, Emojis, etc. aren't going anywhere. We will continue to make GIPHY openly available to the wider ecosystem."
GIPHY was created in 2013, and has since become the most popular platform for finding and uploading GIFs.
Read the original article on Business Insider