It’s official, Meta will sell GIPHY for 53 million dollars and the bidder that has won this platform of GIFs is Shutterstock.
What many expected has been fulfilled, GIPHY will cease to be from Facebook. Meta has been delaying the sale of the most famous GIF search engine in the world and, now, it has had to face the regulators. GIPHY will become part of Shutterstock after the payment of 53 million dollars, which will make Meta recover only a small part of its investment.
What is the reason for selling GIPHY? British regulators have had a lot to do with this. Meta took over GIPHY and after this the UK antitrust authority ordered the company behind Facebook to sell GIPHY. The reason behind the order lies in the reduction of competition in the online market.
Seven months have passed since the sale order by the UK antitrust authority and, finally, Meta has found a seller that offers an amount according to what they expected. The $53 million is just a small part of the investment that Meta has made in the past..
If we go back a few months we find that Facebook paid in May 2020 for GIPHY the amount, unofficial, of 400 million dollars. The 53 million dollars that have been offered by Shutterstock would represent a little more than a quarter of the initial investment made by Meta.
GIPHY will become Shutterstock and leave Meta
It is clear that the amount is the least of it for a company like Meta that has been forced to close different investment centers like the Metaverse. The most interesting thing about the situation is the fact that Meta expected that, by buying GIPHY, its social networks like Instagram would have an improvement in the search for GIFs or stickers.
In fact, this may change Meta’s plans with Instagram since, just a few days ago, a piece of news came to light that Instagram users could start replying to messages using GIFs. This feature would be supported by the integration of GIPHY within the social network that, now, will not belong to Meta.
Of course, thanks to the report that has come to light, it can be seen that Meta and Shutterstock have managed to sign an agreement whereby products from Meta, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, among others, will be able to continue accessing the entire library of content offered by GIPHY. All is not lost for the moment, although Meta has had to accept such a minimal offer.