Meta is selling Giphy for a staggering loss in the hundreds of millions after the UK’s regulator forced a sale.
Facebook announced it had acquired Giphy in May 2020 in a deal that was reportedly worth some $400 million. The deal drew immediate criticism, with the companies accused of using a legal loophole to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened an investigation, ultimately ruling against the acquisition over antitrust concerns and ordering Meta to divest itself of Giphy.
Meta has reached a deal to sell Giphy to Shutterstock for a mere $53 million.
“This is an exciting next step in Shutterstock’s journey as an end-to-end creative platform,“ remarked Shutterstock 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. 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.”
The CMA recently ruled against Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal. With Meta now forced to sell Giphy based on the CMA’s ruling, it’s a safe bet companies will be a little more careful brokering big deals that could land them in the crosshairs of antitrust regulators.
