This startup is betting GIFs and 'micro memes' will be supercharged in the AI era. Read its pitch deck.

Memes have become a fixture in how we communicate. We're reacting with GIFs in work Slack channels and sending memes in the family group chat.

Klipy, a GIF and meme content startup, thinks that we'll be sending even more of those with a boost from AI.

The startup recently raised $3.8 million from Google's AI Futures Fund and venture capital firms to grow its platform. Klipy lets people create content, like GIFs, stickers, or video clips that can easily be shared on messaging platforms or other apps.

"We raised because we are seeing insane growth in developers and in creators," Givi Beridze, Klipy's CEO, told Business Insider.

Creators on Klipy include anyone making content, whether it's an individual, a movie studio, or a television network that owns IP.

Developers, meanwhile, are typically websites or apps that want to integrate content like GIFs into their products. Klipy's business is built around its API, which allows developers to embed the platform's GIFs directly into their own apps. Developers can also enable monetization by allowing ads to be placed between content. (Klipy declined to share what that revenue split is.)

With the rise of vibe coding, there are more developers than ever.

"People are coding up anything," said Frank Nawabi, Klipy cofounder and board director. "Now, anyone creating any app, whether they're using it for their personal life or projects, or whether they want it to grow on the app store, they're coming to Klipy to use the API to have this kind of visual expression."

For instance, an app developer could sign up for Klipy's API and integrate the GIF library into their app. It's free for indie and early-stage developers.

This isn't Nawabi's first rodeo working with memes.

Before joining Klipy in 2025, he cofounded Tenor, a similar meme and GIF API platform that Google acquired in 2018. Tenor's API had become a go-to tool for many apps, but Google is shutting it down at the end of the month.

Since launching in 2022, Klipy has partnered with a handful of platforms, including the social media app BeReal, graphic design tool Canva, and Microsoft's AI keyboard SwiftKey. Nawabi said it's also being used by customer service providers, like Intercom, to diffuse tension between the customer and the rep. It helps the exchange be "more lightweight, lighthearted," he said.

Perhaps if a customer service bot sent me a meme next time I'm stressfully trying to get an answer out of it, I'd have more patience. (No promises.)

Memes for the AI era

When pitching investors, Klipy focused on how relevant GIFs and meme-making are for Generation Z and Gen Alpha.

With AI, these younger users can "iterate on existing memes" and make "hyper-specific" content, Nawabi said. These are what Klipy calls "micro memes," where memes are more about inside jokes than viral trends.

Other platforms, like Meta's apps and Apple's iMessage, have also tapped into people's desire to create their own emojis or stickers with AI.

While content creation is one way to leverage AI, Klipy is also using it to improve search and content moderation.

Klipy uses AI to help users find memes from its library faster, for instance. Its relationship with Google's AI Futures Fund plays a key role here: the startup gets early access to Gemini models.

Beridze told Business Insider that content moderation is one of the company's top uses of AI.

"We use the combination of human moderators paired with AI tools to make sure we instantly flag the content that's not safe for work," Beridze said.

Klipy's overall team is "just under" 20 staffers, per Beridze, and is split between San Francisco and the country of Georgia (its CTO, for instance, is based in Tbilisi).

"We're being really calculated on team size," Nawabi said. "It's the era of efficiency."

Read the pitch deck Klipy used to raise $3.8 million:

Note: Some slides and details have been redacted by the company. The original deck has many animated GIFs.