Shutterstock To Acquire GIPHY From Meta For $53 Mn

Shutterstock on Tuesday said it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GIF company GIPHY, Inc. from Meta.

The acquisition comes months after Meta agreed to divest GIPHY on competition concerns. Britain’s competition regulator ordered Meta to sell GIPHY over fears that it would deny or limit competitors such as Snapchat and Twitter access GIPHY’s content.

But under the acquisition deal with Shutterstock, Meta also entered into an API agreement to ensure continued access to GIPHY's content across Meta’s platforms.

GIPHY is the world’s largest collection of GIFs and stickers that supplies casual conversational content. The company’s library of GIFs and stickers draws more than 1.3 billion search queries on a daily basis and powers more than 15 billion daily media impressions. GIPHY's content library is fueled by both individual artists who contribute original content and top verified media partners such as NBC, Disney, Netflix, NFL, MLB and NBA.

“Through the GIPHY acquisition, we are extending our audience touch points beyond primarily professional marketing and advertising use cases and expanding into casual conversations. GIPHY enables everyday users to express themselves in memorable ways with GIF and sticker content while also enabling brands to be a part of these casual conversations,” said Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy.

“We plan to leverage Shutterstock’s unique capabilities in content and metadata monetization, generative AI, studio production and creative automation to enable the commercialization of our GIF library as we roll this offering out to customers,” added Hennessy.

Shutterstock said it was maintaining its 2023 revenue and adjusted EBITDA margin guidance. The company also said that it expected GIPHY to add minimal revenue in 2023 with focused monetisation efforts taking place over the course of 2024.