The agreement
Shutterstock today announced its definitive agreement to buy Giphy for $53 million, seven months after Meta said it would accept the CMA’s ruling that it must divest Giphy. Shutterstock said the deal is expected to close in June and is “subject to customary closing conditions.”
The deal should allay Giphy’s trepidation, which encouraged the CMA to issue conduct of business ordinances rather than force Meta to sell Giphy. The animated graphics company feared that GIFs just weren’t as cool as they were in 2020, which is why the platform would mainly attract “weak or inappropriate” suitors.
“User sentiment towards GIFs on social media shows that they have gone out of fashion as a form of content, with younger users in particular describing GIFs as ‘for boomers’ and ‘cringe,'” Giphy told the CMA in August.
Giphy urged the CMA, which had to approve the sale of Meta Giphy, to wait for a buyer with “industry knowledge and experience managing a group of young technical engineers, product managers and staff.”
Shutterstock gets Giphy in
It’s unclear how “young” Shutterstock’s team is, but Giphy’s library will at least be a fitting inclusion in the stock photo provider’s library. Meanwhile, Shutterstock hopes to expand more to consumers.
Shutterstock plans to expand its API ecosystem with Giphy’s more than 14,000 API/SDK integrations. It will serve 1.7 billion daily users who perform more than 1.3 billion searches daily and generate 15 billion daily media impressions, including on the Giphy website and app, today’s announcement said.
The New York City-headquartered company will also add new partners as Giphy is integrated with business platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack and social media like TikTok and SnapChat. Meta also signed a deal to continue using Giphy’s API.
Furthermore, Giphy partners with media entities, including Disney, NBC and Netflix, and sports leagues, such as the NFL. Shutterstock hopes to use these to grow its marketing and advertising potential by allowing consumers to use relevant GIFs and stickers in “casual conversations,” Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy said in a statement.
“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 move this offering to customers,” he said.
Shares of Shutterstock rose nearly 2 percent in Tuesday morning trading, according to CNBC.
