Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.) is a technology company that has acquired 91 other companies, including WhatsApp. The WhatsApp acquisition closed at a steep $16 billion; more than $40 per user of the platform. Meta also purchased the defunct company ConnectU in a court settlement and acquired intellectual property formerly held by rival Friendster. The majority of the companies acquired by Meta are based in the United States, and in turn, a large percentage of these companies are based in or around the San Francisco Bay Area. Meta has also made investments in LuckyCal and Wildfire Interactive.
Most of Meta's acquisitions have primarily been "talent acquisitions" and acquired products are often shut-down. In 2009, Meta (as Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a question on Quora, titled "What startups would be good acquisitions for Facebook?", receiving 79 answers. He stated in 2010 that "We have not once bought a company for the company. We buy companies to get excellent people... In order to have a really entrepreneurial culture one of the key things is to make sure we're recruiting the best people. One of the ways to do this is to focus on acquiring great companies with great founders." The Instagram acquisition, announced on April 9, 2012, appears to have been the first exception to this pattern. While continuing with a pattern of primarily talent acquisitions, other notable product focused acquisitions include the $19 billion WhatsApp acquisition and the $2 billion Oculus VR acquisition.
Acquisitions
Number Company Location Acquired on Acquired for (USD) Adjusted for Inflation (USD) Talent acquired Related to Used as / integrated with 1 facebook.com domain name, Boston, Massachusetts August 23, 2005 200,000 — — name change from Thefacebook.com|2 Parakey, Mountain View, California July 19, 2007 — —Blake Ross, Joe Hewitt Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital Facebook Mobile3ConnectU, Cambridge, Massachusetts June 23, 2008 31,000,000 — i2Hub (Court settlement)4FriendFeed, Mountain View, California August 10, 2009 47,500,000 Paul Buchheit, Bret Taylor, Jim Norris, Sanjeev Singh, 8 others Benchmark Capital, ex-Google —5 Octazen, Taman Melawati, Kuala Lumpur February 19, 2010 — — 2 engineers (remote workers) — Websluths6Divvyshot, San Francisco, California March 2, 2010 — — Sam Odio, Paul Carduner Y Combinator, AngelList Facebook Photos7Friendster patents, Mountain View, California / , Kuala Lumpur May 13, 2010 40,000,000 — — —8 ShareGrove, San Mateo, California May 26, 2010 — — Kent Libbey, Adam Wolff Elm Street Ventures Facebook Groups9 Zenbe, New York, NY, New York July 6, 2010 — — Tom Alison, Will Bailey, Robert Kieffer — Facebook Messenger10 Nextstop, San Francisco, California July 8, 2010 2,500,000 Charles Lin, Carl Sjogreen, Adrian Graham ex-Google —11 Chai Labs, Mountain View, California August 15, 2010 10,000,000 Gokul Rajaram, Giri Rajaram, others Merus Capital, ex-Google —12 Hot Potato, Brooklyn, New York August 20, 2010 ~10,000,000 ~ Saadiq Rodgers-King, Justin Shaffer, 6 others RRE Ventures Facebook Places13Drop.io, Dumbo, Brooklyn, New York October 29, 2010 ~10,000,000 ~ Sam Lessin RRE Ventures —14FB.com domain name, Washington, D.C. November 15, 2010 8,500,000 — — —15 Rel8tion, Seattle, Washington January 25, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed Peter Wilson — —16 Beluga, Palo Alto, California March 2, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed Jonathan Perlow, Lucy Zhang, Ben Davenport — Facebook Messenger17Snaptu, Tel Aviv March 20, 2011 70,000,000 — — —18 RecRec, San Francisco, California March 24, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed — Dogpatch Labs —19 DayTum, SoHo, New York City April 27, 2011 undisclosed undisclosedNicholas Felton, Ryan Case — —20 Sofa, Amsterdam June 9, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed Koen Bok, Dirk Stoop, Jasper Hauser, Hugo van Heuven, Jorn van Dijk — —21 MailRank, New York, New York June 9, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed Bryan O'Sullivan and Bethanye McKinney Blount — —22 Push Pop Press, San Francisco, California August 2, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed Co-founders Mike Matas and Kimon Tsinteris — —23 Friend.ly, Mountain View, California October 10, 2011 undisclosed undisclosed Co-founder/CEO Ed Baker — —24 Strobe, San Francisco, CaliforniaNovember 8, 2011 undisclosed undisclosedFounder and CEO Charles Jolley, other Strobe employees —Mobile engineering team25Gowalla, Austin, Texas December 2, 2011 — — — — —26 Caffeinatedmind, California February 20, 2012 — — — — — —27Instagram, San Francisco, California April 9, 2012 1,000,000,000 — — — —28Tagtile, San Francisco, California April 13, 2012 undisclosed undisclosed Tagtile's founders — —29 Glancee, San Francisco, California May 5, 2012 undisclosed undisclosedAndrea Vaccari, Alberto Tretti, Gabriel Grisé — Facebook Nearby Friends30Lightbox.com, London, England May 15, 2012 undisclosed undisclosed Thai Tran, Nilesh Patel, Five employees — —31 Karma, San Francisco, California May 21, 2012 undisclosed undisclosed Lee Linden, Ben Lewis — Facebook Gifts32Face.com, Tel Aviv June 18, 2012 100,000,000 — — —33Spool, San Francisco, California July 14, 2012 undisclosed undisclosed Avichal Garg, Curtis Spencer, Six employees — Mobile engineering team34 Acrylic Software, Vancouver, British Columbia July 20, 2012 undisclosed undisclosed Two employees — Facebook's design team35 Threadsy, San Francisco, California August 24, 2012 undisclosed undisclosed — — —36Atlas Solutions, Seattle, Washington February 28, 2013 <100,000,000 < — — —37 osmeta, Mountain View, CA March 2013 — — 17 engineers — —38 Storylane (Mixtent), Palo Alto, CA March 2013 — — Jonathan Gheller, 5 engineers — —39 Hot Studio, New York, New York, San Francisco, California March 14, 2013 — — — — —40 Spaceport, Burlingame, California April 23, 2013 — — — — —41Parse, San Francisco, California April 25, 2013 85,000,000 — — —42 Monoidics, London, England July 18, 2013 — — — — —43Jibbigo, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania August 12, 2013 — — — — —44Onavo, Tel Aviv October 13, 2013 — — Guy Rosen, CEO — —45 SportStream, San Francisco, California December 17, 2013 — — — — —46 Little Eye Labs, Bengaluru, Karnataka January 8, 2014 15,000,000 — — —47 Branch, New York, New York January 13, 2014 15,000,000 — — —48WhatsApp, Mountain View, California February 19, 2014 19,000,000,000 Co-founder and CEO Jan Koum — —49Oculus VR, Irvine, California March 25, 2014 2,000,000,000 Co-founders Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe, Engineer Chris Dycus, and CTO John D. Carmack — Reality Labs50 Ascenta, Somerset, England March 27, 2014 20,000,000 — — —51Salorix, Palo Alto, CAApril 14, 2014 undisclosed undisclosedSantanu Bhattacharya — Facebook Ads52 ProtoGeo Oy, HelsinkiApril 24, 2014 undisclosed undisclosed — — Moves mobile app; discontinued in July 201853PrivateCore, Palo Alto, CaliforniaAugust 7, 2014 undisclosed undisclosed — — —54 LiveRail, San Francisco, CaliforniaAugust 14, 2014 400,000,000 - 500,000,000 - — — —55WaveGroup Sound, Burlingame, CaliforniaAugust 26, 2014 undisclosed undisclosed — — —56 Wit.ai, Palo Alto, CaliforniaJanuary 6, 2015 undisclosed undisclosed — — —57 Quickfire Networks, San Diego, CaliforniaJanuary 8, 2015 undisclosed undisclosed — — —58TheFind, Inc., Mountain View, CaliforniaMarch 14, 2015 undisclosed undisclosed — — —59 Surreal Vision, London, EnglandMay 26, 2015 undisclosed undisclosed — — —60 Pebbles, Kfar SabaJuly 16, 2015 60,000,000 — — —61 Endaga, Oakland, CaliforniaOctober 3, 2015 undisclosed undisclosed — — —62 MSQRD (Masquerade), MinskMarch 9, 2016 undisclosed undisclosedCEO, Eugene Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar, Eugene Zatepyakin (co-founders) — —63Two Big Ears, ScotlandMay 23, 2016 undisclosed undisclosed — — —64Nascent Objects, CaliforniaSeptember 19, 2016 undisclosed undisclosed — — —65Infiniled, CorkOctober 10, 2016 undisclosed undisclosed — — —66CrowdTangleNovember 11, 2016 undisclosed undisclosed — — —Inside Facebook’s Data Wars The New York Times. 202167Faciometrics, Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaNovember 16, 2016 undisclosed undisclosedFernando De la TorreCarnegie Mellon University —68Zurich Eye undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus VR69Ozlo, Palo Alto, CaliforniaJuly 31, 2017 undisclosed undisclosed — — Facebook Messenger70Fayteq AG undisclosed undisclosed — —Facebook Live71tbh, Oakland, CaliforniaOctober 16, 2017 undisclosed undisclosedCEO Nikita Bier, CTO Erik Hazzard, Kyle Zaragoza, Nicolas Ducdodon — —72Confirm, Boston, MassachusettsJanuary 23, 2018 undisclosed undisclosedBob Geiman, Ralph Rodriguez, Walt Doyle — —73Bloomsbury AI, London, England 30,000,000 — — —74Redkix, Tel AvivJuly 26, 2018 100,000,000 Oudi Antebi, Roy Antebi — Workplace by Facebook75Vidpresso, Ogden, UtahAugust 13, 2018 undisclosed undisclosedRandall Bennett, Justin Carter, Pauli Ojala, Hassan SalahuddinY Combinator —76Dreambit, Seattle, Washington undisclosed undisclosed Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, Eli Shlizerman University of Washington Reality Labs 77Chainspace, London, England — —George Danezis, Shehar Bano, Alberto SonninoUniversity College LondonFacebook Blockchain 78GrokStyle, San Francisco, CaliforniaFebruary 8, 2019 undisclosed undisclosedKavita Bala, Sean Bell — —79Servicefriend, Tel Aviv undisclosed undisclosedIdo Arad, Shahar Ben Ami —Novi80CTRL-labs, New York City, New York undisclosed, but reportedly between $500 million and $1 billion undisclosed, but reportedly between $ million and $ billionThomas Reardon, Patrick Kaifosh —Reality Labs81Packagd, San Francisco, California undisclosed undisclosed — —Facebook Marketplace82Beat Games, Prague undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio83Atlas ML, London, England undisclosed undisclosed — — —84PlayGiga, Madrid 70,000,000 — — —85Sanzaru Games, Foster City, California undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio86Scape Technologies, London, England ~40,000,000 ~ — —Reality Labs87Giphy, San Francisco, New YorkMay 15, 2020 400,000,000 — —Instagram88Mapillary, MalmöJune 18, 2020 undisclosed undisclosed — — —89Ready at Dawn, Irvine, CaliforniaJune 22, 2020 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio90Lemnis Technologies , SingaporeSeptember 18, 2020 undisclosed undisclosedPierre-Yves Laffont —Reality Labs 91Kustomer, New York, New YorkNovember 30, 2020 1,000,000,000 — — — 92Downpour Interactive, San Francisco, CaliforniaApril 30, 2021 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio 93Unit 2 Games, Leamington SpaJune 4, 2021 undisclosed undisclosed — —Facebook Gaming94BigBox VR, Seattle, WashingtonJune 11, 2021 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio95AI.Reverie, New York, NY, New YorkOctober 11, 2021 undisclosed undisclosed — — —96Within, Los Angeles, CaliforniaOctober 29, 2021 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio 97Twisted Pixel GamesNovember 1, 2021 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio 98Presize, MunichApril 8, 2022~100,000,000~Leon Szeli, Tomislav Tomov Technical University of MunichFacebook Shops, Instagram Shopping99Lofelt, Berlin undisclosed undisclosed — — —100Armature StudioOctober 11, 2022 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio101CamouflajOctober 11, 2022 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio102LuxexcelDecember 30, 2022 undisclosed undisclosed — —Oculus Studio103Play AIJuly 11, 2025 undisclosed undisclosed — —Meta Superintelligence Labs104WaveFormsAugust 8, 2025 undisclosed undisclosed — —Meta Superintelligence Labs105RivosSeptember 30, 2025 undisclosed undisclosed — — Meta Training and Inference Accelerator106LimitlessDecember 5, 2025undisclosedundisclosed———107Manus AIDecember 29, 2025>2,000,000,000>———108MoltbookMarch 10, 2026 undisclosed undisclosed Matt Schlicht, Ben Parr —Meta Superintelligence Labs109Assured Robot IntelligenceMay 1, 2026undisclosedundisclosed———110Stilla, StockholmSeptember 9, 2026undisclosedundisclosedSiavash Ghorbani, Kaj Drobin—Meta Business Agent
See also List of largest mergers and acquisitions Lists of corporate acquisitions and mergers
References