Meta Sells Giphy to Shutterstock Pursuant to UK Order

Sold to GB Shutterstock by Meta – Photo: Getty Images

Shutterstock said Tuesday it would buy GB from Meta Platforms for $53 million in cash, months after Facebook’s parent company agreed to sell the company due to competitive concerns.

The UK antitrust regulator last year ordered the sale of Giphy over fears rivals such as Snapchat and Twitter could reject or restrict the company’s content.

Meta reportedly paid $400 million for Giphy in 2020. A year later, the deal was challenged by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the first time the UK regulator had forced a US technology company to sell a company it had already bought.

Shares of Shutterstock, which expects the deal to close next month, rose as much as 4% in premarket trading. The company said Gphy will add “minimal” revenue this year and will begin efforts to increase revenue from 2024.

“This is an exciting next step in Shutterstock’s journey as an end-to-end creative platform,” said Paul Hennessy, Shutterstock chief executive.

Giphy is the world’s largest repository of animated images, known as GIFs, and stickers used on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Microsoft Teams.

The content, which includes official content from media companies such as Disney and Netflix, generates 15 billion daily impressions.

Shutterstock said the deal with Giphy would give it access to about 1.7 billion daily users.