Snapchat Is Buying Bitstrips, the Company That Turns You Into an Emoji

Snapchat is buying Bitstrips, the company behind the Bitmoji app that lets you create an avatar of yourself to share on social media and over text, according to a source familiar with the deal.

Fortune’s Dan Primack, who first reported the news, said Snapchat is paying "in the ballpark of $100 million" for the company, which was founded in 2012. It quickly became popular on Facebook, as users created and shared cartoon versions of themselves in a bunch of different settings.

Update: According to Snap's S-1 filing from February 2017, Bitstrips was acquired for around $64 million in cash and stock.

A Snapchat spokesperson declined to comment.

The app raised $8 million in funding from Horizon Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers back in late 2014 to build a mobile app.

It’s not entirely clear why Snapchat wants Bitmoji, but it feels like a good fit for the company, which has a number of other fun features to help users spruce up their photos and videos. Snapchat allows users to put emojis on photos and videos they send, and has generated a lot of buzz for facial filters that let people distort their faces into different animals or characters. (Facebook just bought a similar company two weeks ago.) Personal emojis are a logical fit in that regard.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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