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Following UK antitrust order, Meta sells Giphy to Shutterstock for $53M after buying it for $400M 🖼️

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has sold Giphy, the animated GIF search engine it bought three years ago for $400 million, to Shutterstock for $53 million. This sale comes after the UK's antitrust authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), issued a final order for Meta to sell Giphy due to concerns that the merger reduced dynamic competition.

Shutterstock expects the deal to close next month, and as part of the agreement, Meta will continue to have access to Giphy's content across its product suite. The sale conditions required Meta to sell Giphy as a whole entity and find a legitimate buyer that would continue to operate Giphy as a GIF search engine. The CMA also had the final say on who Meta could sell Giphy to.

Shutterstock's acquisition of Giphy aligns with its near-term roadmap, which includes extending into different content types. The company plans to leverage Giphy to expand its content library to include GIFs and stickers for advertisers and brands. It also sees the acquisition as a way to access a consumer market it has not previously targeted and bolster its "generative AI and metadata strategy.

techcrunch.com