Facebook Parent Meta Sells Giphy To Shutterstock For $53 Million Under Pressure From UK Regulator

Shutterstock said today it’s buying Giphy from Meta Platforms for $53 million in cash with the deal expected to close in June.

Giphy has the world’s largest collection of GIFs and stickers. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled in the fall of 2021 that the combination with Meta would harm competition in social media and advertising, and ordered a sale. Facebook initially appealed the order to divest, but then agreed to a sale last October. It’s a rare instance of a European regulator forcibly unwinding a deal.

Shutterstock said Giphy sees more than 1.3 billion daily search queries and powers more than 15 billion daily media impressions through its website and mobile app. Its content serves as an ingredient in text and message-based conversations on Meta — which will retain access — and other social media platforms from TikTok to Twitter to Snapchat. Its content library is contributed by individuals, and media partners including NBC, Disney, Netflix, NFL, MLB and NBA, “ensuring a steady supply of fresh culturally relevant content which can be inserted into everyday conversations and shared via social media.”

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“This is an exciting next step in Shutterstock’s journey as an end-to-end creative platform,” said CEO Paul Hennessy. “Shutterstock is in the business of helping people and brands tell their stories. Through the GIPHY acquisition, we are extending our audience touch points beyond primarily professional marketing and advertising use cases and expanding into casual conversations.” He said the company will help leverage Shutterstock capabilities in content and metadata monetization, generative AI, studio production and creative automation.

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