Giphy launched in what month and year?

Giphy launched in February 2013.

The service was founded by Alex Chung and Jace Cooke as the use of short, looping visual clips was becoming a major form of online communication. At launch, Giphy functioned primarily as a search engine for GIFs, helping people find and share animated images rather than creating a new image format.

The founders’ original idea grew from the observation that people were increasingly communicating visually. Giphy later expanded beyond search: in August 2013 it added tools for posting, embedding, and sharing GIFs on Facebook, and it subsequently integrated with other social and messaging platforms.

Giphy’s launch date is sometimes confused with later milestones, including its 2014 funding round, its 2015 mobile expansion, and the launch of GIPHY Cam. Those events helped broaden the company’s reach, but the service itself began in February 2013. Giphy is a platform and searchable database built around GIF files, not the inventor of the GIF format.