Facebook acquires social Gif-making site Giphy

Facebook has bought one of the largest Gif-sharing websites on the internet in a deal reported to be worth around 400 million dollars.

Giphy’s user-uploaded library of animated images is already integrated and used widely by Facebook’s family of social media apps, but now it will become a part of the Instagram team.

According to Facebook, 50% of Giphy’s traffic comes from Facebook’s platforms, with half of that from Instagram alone.

“By bringing Instagram and Giphy together, we can make it easier for people to find the perfect Gifs and stickers in Stories and Direct,” said Vishal Shah, Facebook’s vice president of product.

“Both our services are big supporters of the creator and artist community, and that will continue.

“Together, we can make it easier for anyone to create and share their work with the world.”

People can currently share Gifs from Giphy on Facebook rivals such as Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Both companies said the service will continue to be openly available to others with the “same access” to its API (application programming interface).

According to Axios, the deal is valued at around 400 million dollars and Giphy is expected to keep its own branding.

Giphy, which launched in 2013, said: “More than one billion people use Instagram to communicate how they’re feeling and what they’re passionate about — we can’t wait to help those people become even more animated!”