Shutterstock Buys Giphy as Meta Sells It for $53M to Comply With UK Order

Shutterstock Inc., a stock photography company, acquired Giphy from Meta Platforms Inc. for $53 million. The deal happened as the Facebook owner was ordered by the UK regulators to sell the GIF database due to concerns that it may limit competitors' access to Giphy's content.

The competition regulator in Britain handed down the order last year, and Meta agreed to divest Giphy. With the sale price, Meta suffered a huge loss since it originally paid $400 million to buy Giphy in 2020.

However, in 2021, the acquisition deal was challenged by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). In the end, Meta was forced to sell its newly-acquired asset. Just months after the social media platform complied with the order, Shutterstock announced it has acquired Giphy.

According to Reuters, Shutterstock said on Tuesday, May 23, that it will pay in cash. It will be funded by existing cash-on-hand plus an intellectual property-sharing deal that will allow Meta to keep its access to content on Giphy's database.

The deal between Meta Platforms and Shutterstock is expected to be completed next month. The new owner said that it will put in "minimal" revenue this year and then launch efforts to boost profits starting in 2024.

"This is an exciting next step in Shutterstock's journey as an end-to-end creative platform. Shutterstock is in the business of helping people and brands tell their stories," Shutterstock's chief executive officer, Paul Hennessy, said in a press release. "Through the GIPHY acquisition, we are extending our audience touch points beyond primarily professional marketing and advertising use cases and expanding into casual conversations."

The CEO added, "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. 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."

Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva/Unsplash