How much cash did Shutterstock announce it would pay for Giphy in May 2023?

Shutterstock announced in May 2023 that it would pay $53 million in cash for Giphy.

The transaction followed a long regulatory dispute. Meta, then the owner of Giphy, had acquired the GIF platform in 2020 for a reported $400 million. The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority concluded that the deal could harm competition and ultimately required Meta to divest Giphy.

Shutterstock agreed to purchase Giphy from Meta for $53 million. The amount was dramatically lower than Meta’s original purchase price, a difference that became one of the deal’s most notable details. The acquisition was completed on June 23, 2023, making Giphy part of Shutterstock’s broader stock-media business.

A common mix-up is reversing the two headline figures: $400 million refers to Meta’s 2020 purchase, while $53 million refers to Shutterstock’s 2023 acquisition. Giphy remains a searchable platform for animated GIFs and short looping visual clips, but the sale was driven primarily by the forced divestiture rather than a routine expansion deal.