- KLIPY (ex-Kikliko) raises $1.2M Seed to monetize GIFs, stickers, memes, and AI content—while maintaining user experience and privacy.
- With backing from British fund Sturgeon Capital, NBA champion Zaza Pachulia, Gfycat co-founder Dan McEleney, and other prominent Silicon Valley investors, KLIPY enables apps to turn animated content into profit through seamless, non-intrusive ads.
- Funding drives KLIPY’s global expansion, with a focus on onboarding new apps and becoming the market leader in 2025, as it recently launched on major platforms such as Slack, Canva, and Figma in the last six months.
KLIPY is an API for GIFs, stickers, clips, and memes that enables messaging, dating, keyboard and media apps to generate revenue while growing user engagement. The startup is building the monetization engine the GIF industry never had – as GIFs, stickers, memes, and AI content power some of today’s most engaging online experiences, but remain a missed opportunity, both in terms of revenue and user experience.
KLIPY has built the largest localized library of animated content. From day one of integration, apps and platforms can showcase highly relevant, culturally tailored GIFs, memes, or AI features to their users boosting user engagement and unlocking new revenue streams.
Serial entrepreneur and 3x founder, recognized in Forbes 30 under 30, and a mentor at Techstars and Founder Institute, KLIPY’s CEO Givi Beridze also serves as an advisor at multiple universities, including San Diego State University.
He has built two successful tech companies from the ground up, launching multiple software and hardware products that are actively used by millions of users worldwide, across various industries. His expertise spans product development, growth strategy, and scaling technology-driven businesses.
“KLIPY is proving that short-form media, like GIFs, stickers, and memes, is much more than entertainment – it’s a billion-dollar business. And we aren’t just monetizing it; we’re reinventing how people create and communicate by bringing generative AI directly into the platforms they already use every day,” Beridze explains.
Furthemore, KLIPY’s CTO Waska Chaduneli is 2x founder with a strong technical background and deep expertise in building scalable and sustainable software solutions.
Him and Givi have co-built multiple companies together, consistently finding innovative and cost-efficient solutions that drive growth while ensuring long-term sustainability. Waska’s technical leadership has played a critical role in the development of high-performance platforms that benefit both users and business partners alike.
Handling 4 billion requests per month while keeping low server costs
While billions of users interact with animated content daily, companies like GIPHY and Tenor have failed to generate revenue. GIPHY (acquired first by Meta, then by Shutterstock), Tenor (acquired by Google), and Gfycat (acquired by Snap Inc, parent company of Snapchat) were major players in the space, with billions of users and hundreds of millions in funding. However, their inefficient technology led to high server and content team costs, burning through funding runways in a few years.
In 2023, Meta was fined almost $70 million by UK regulators over monopoly concerns and was forced to sell GIPHY to Shutterstock – whose API later became paid. With Tenor expressing no plans to monetize, KLIPY identified a clear gap in the market.
With a more efficient infrastructure and AI capabilities, KLIPY now handles around 4 billion requests per month while keeping server costs under $1,500. More importantly, KLIPY’s ad-supported technology makes it possible to insert non-intrusive, user-friendly ads between content, both direct and programmatic, enabling apps and content owners to generate revenue. This makes KLIPY the first GIF platform designed to be both sustainable and highly profitable, with a clear trajectory toward significant scale and market leadership.
Platforms like GIPHY, Tenor, and Gfycat attracted billions of users but failed to generate sustainable revenue – ultimately being sold, shut down, or facing regulatory challenges. At the same time, some of the most widely used online platforms – social networking, messaging, dating, keyboard, and media apps – ran into a wall of limited opportunity to monetize, despite having billions of active users. To break through, they started to rely on intrusive banner ads that hurt user experience, lower their engagement, and damage NPS (Net Promoter Score).
KLIPY solves both problems simultaneously. With a massive, engaging library of animated content, KLIPY enables apps to integrate GIFs, stickers, clips, and AI features for free – while seamlessly monetizing them and sharing the revenue with the platforms.
Unlike traditional ad models, KLIPY’s contextual ad technology inserts non-intrusive, relevant ads directly between content, ensuring a high CTR (Click-Through Rate) for advertisers without disrupting the user experience.
With trillions of annual impressions that GIFs and stickers generate, KLIPY aims to take over and turn them into billions of dollars of shared revenue. By eliminating inefficiencies that sank previous giants and providing a monetization strategy that benefits both platforms and users, KLIPY is set to redefine the way digital content generates revenue.
Filling the monetization gap in the GIF and AI content space
Investors see KLIPY as a promising solution for monetizing GIFs, stickers, and AI-generated content, an area that has seen little innovation since the acquisitions of Tenor and GIPHY. As platform and user needs evolve, KLIPY aims to fill this gap with a new approach.
Robin Butler, Partner at Sturgeon Capital, noted that KLIPY is tackling a key monetization challenge, especially as generative AI drives more content creation. NBA champion Zaza Pachulia highlighted the company’s potential to impact entertainment and advertising.
“Presto backed Givi, Waska, and their talented team early on, betting on their bold vision to disrupt the GIF industry – an ecosystem with massive usage but zero revenue for social platforms and messaging apps. No one had cracked this challenge, until now. It’s great to see their game-changing, win-win solution gaining strong traction in the market.” said Vojta Rocek, partner at Presto Ventures.
“With traditional ad inventories becoming outdated and ad-blindness impacting CTRs, KLIPY’s unique model offers a fresh approach. Their innovative ad inventory placed between GIFs, stickers, and other products within the world’s largest apps, combined with diverse targeting opportunities, not only captures attention but also drives meaningful engagement.” added Yaroslav Kholod, VP at Admixer.
