Why Shutterstock (SSTK) Stock Is Trading Higher Today - Shutterstock (NYSE:SSTK)

Shutterstock Inc SSTK disclosed the acquisition of GIPHY, Inc. from Meta Platforms, Inc META for $53 million.
GIPHY has the world's largest collection of GIFs and stickers, having 1.7 billion daily users, drawing over 1.3 billion search queries daily and powering over 15 billion daily media impressions.
The GIPHY buyout boosts Shutterstock's generative AI and metadata strategy and expands its API ecosystem to include more than 14,000 API/SDK partners.
With the acquisition, Shutterstock gains several major global partners, including Microsoft Corp MSFT, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, Twitter, and Slack.
Apart from the acquisition deal, Meta inked an API deal with Shutterstock to secure continued access to GIPHY's content across its platform.
Shutterstock expects the GIPHY acquisition to close in June 2023, to have minimal impact on 2023 revenue and project monetization efforts to occur during 2024.
The company reaffirmed its guidance for 2023 revenue at $844 million to $853 million.
"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," stated Paul Hennessy, CEO.
"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."
Price Action: SSTK shares are trading higher by 3.66% at $55.94 on the last check Tuesday.

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