Social network firm Reddit said on Sunday it would buy short-video platform Dubsmash, becoming the latest company to expand in a space dominated by Chinese-owned TikTok.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a spokeswoman for Reddit said the acquisition was based on a combination of cash and stock. Dubsmash’s entire team, including co-founders Suchit Dash, Jonas DrŶppel and Tim Specht, will join Reddit.
Reddit said in a blog post that the deal would give its users, who can already upload and stream videos, access to Dubsmash’s editing and short-video creation tools.
The success of ByteDance’s TikTok has led many social media companies to add short-video services to their platforms, with Snapchat rolling out ‘Spotlight’ in November and Facebook launching ‘Instagram Reels’ earlier this year.
The San Francisco-based company added that Dubsmash would maintain its own platform and brand. The app allows users to lip-sync over audio clips including sections of songs, movies, and famous quotes. Users can upload their own audio and can add colour filters and text animation to their recordings. Users have to save their clips to their devices and can then send them via other messaging applications. Within a week of the app’s launch on November 19, 2014, it had reached the number one position in Germany, later reaching the same position in over 29 other countries. By 2015 it had been downloaded over 50 million times in 192 countries.
