Remember that brief, weird moment a few years back when your Facebook feed was suddenly full of just-ironic-enough comic strip versions of your friends? Well, now you’ll probably see that all over Snapchat, as the messaging app reportedly agreed to pay $100 million to acquire Bitstrips.
Fortune, citing multiple unnamed sources, reports that Snapchat finalized a cash and stock deal to purchase Toronto-base Bitstrips, the maker of personalized emojis known as bitmojis.
Bitstrips began in 2007 by allowing users to build personalized digital comics featuring an avatar in their likeness. These scenes – which featured avatars in different scenarios like the one pictured above, making toast – regularly showed up on Facebook.
Two years ago, the company created a third-party keyboard that allows users to send a version of their avatar in different poses or scenarios to friends via text message.
While it’s unclear what Snapchat plans to do with Bitstrips, the idea of allowing users to create and send personalized emoji versions of themselves seems in line with the messaging system, which created the puking-rainbow selfie filter.
A rep for Snapchat declined to comment on the deal, and Bitstrips has yet to reply to Fortune’s inquiry.
Exclusive: Snapchat Buys Bitmoji Maker [Fortune]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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