Jan Koum and Brian Acton founded WhatsApp in 2009 as a mobile messaging service.
Koum and Acton were former Yahoo employees who created WhatsApp after leaving the company. The initial idea centered on showing status information beside a user’s name, allowing contacts to see whether someone was available. The service developed into an internet-based messaging platform for text, images, video and voice communication.
WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 in a deal announced at a value of approximately $19 billion. The app is now operated by Meta, Facebook’s parent company since its 2021 rebrand. A common mix-up is crediting Mark Zuckerberg with founding WhatsApp; he was not a founder, although Facebook later acquired the company.