How Emojis Became A Weapon in Messaging Wars

When Kleiner Perkins led an $8 million B round for Bitstrips in 2014, partners saw it as a fairly small bet on an app with some momentum. They certainly didn’t anticipate that what is now a maker of goofy, personalized emojis would get swept up in an arms race among social networks for messaging supremacy.

But that’s what happened last month when Snapchat agreed to buy Bitstrips for about $100 million, according to people familiar with the transaction. The tentative deal follows Snapchat’s acquisition of Looksery, which formed the basis for a lens feature it released last year. Facebook, likewise, snapped up the company behind another lens app, MSQRD, last month. Potentially in the mix is Google, which has held acquisitions talks with several companies that do picture-based messaging, according to a person familiar with the matter. Google is expected to make a move into mobile messaging although details aren’t known.