Tenor isn’t as well known as some big-name GIF engine competitors like Giphy, which has raised about $150 million in venture funding to date, most recently at an estimated valuation of $600 million. However, Tenor now powers 300 million GIF searches daily (up from 200 million daily searches in February) through its mobile GIF keyboard and hundreds of integrations with communications apps like Apple AAPL +0.04%’s iMessage, Google’s smart keyboard app Gboard, Facebook Messenger, Twitter TWTR +0.91%, WhatsApp, LinkedIn LNKD +0%, Slack , Discord and Kik. Tenor, which launched on mobile, also says it powers more shares of the short, looping videos and animations than any other tool.
While GIFs were first invented three decades ago and popularized by websites like MySpace, Imgur, Tumblr and Giphy, they have only been readily available within mobile keyboards for about three years. Now, about 70% of Americans ages 8 to 64 years old (about 200 million people) know how to send a GIF, and nearly half of those consumers send at least one GIF per week according to consumer research firm Magid Advisors. Magid’s President Michael Vorhaus says it’s hard to precisely estimate how rapidly GIF-sharing can grow. However, in two to three years, Vorhaus says mobile shares of GIFs could grow by 1,000%, generating $1 billion or $2 billion in total annual advertising revenue.
Tenor says it can’t disclose usage figures specific to platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Apple and Google because of the nature of its partnership agreements. However, Tenor says its standalone Tenor GIF Keyboard on iOS and Android generate nearly 20% of all Tenor-powered searches, with the typical user accessing their keyboard more than 50 times per month. In the past year, Tenor has doubled its headcount to 43 people, opened offices in Los Angeles and New York and launched its nascent advertising business, which began generating revenue earlier this year. (Tenor hasn’t disclosed revenue figures.)
