Source: Facebook and Snap recently approached Dubsmash, a lip-syncing video app, about an acquisition, with discussions including a possible nine-figure deal
Alex Heath / The Information :
Context & Ripple Effects
Dubsmash spent years as a has-been before its revival as a lip-sync and dance video app pushed it to 27% of the US short-form video market by installs in February 2020 — exactly the audience Facebook and Snap have been chasing since TikTok rewrote the format. Facebook's interest is not new: it bought the selfie-filter app Masquerade in 2016 to keep it running stand-alone, tried and failed to buy Naver's Snapchat clone Snow that same year, and by 2018 was building its own TikTok-style music app for lip-syncing videos.
The reported nine-figure approach signals that build-versus-buy has tipped toward buy for both companies: Facebook's in-house clone never displaced TikTok, and Snap lacks any credible short-form answer at all.
First-order effects
- Facebook and Snap each face a live decision on a nine-figure asset that already owns a quarter of US short-form installs — buying it beats rebuilding what their own clones failed to win.
- Dubsmash's founders gain leverage from two bidders at once, letting them price against both a strategic acquirer flush with cash and a rival that needs the audience more.
Second-order effects
- If either deal closes, the loser is forced back into organic product development or a pricier chase of the next short-form app, repeating the pattern of the failed Snow approach.
- A sale would concentrate the short-form market further around TikTok and one US incumbent, squeezing smaller lip-sync and dance apps out of the acquisition premium window.
Third-order effects
- The episode points to short-form video consolidating into a few platform-owned properties, where independent apps that hit scale get absorbed rather than left to compete — and where regulators may eventually scrutinize the big platforms' serial acqui-appetite.
- For creators, consolidation means the same lip-sync formats migrating under fewer roofs, shifting bargaining power over distribution and monetization toward whoever owns the merged audience.
The trend: US platforms are responding to TikTok's rise by acquiring the independent short-form apps they could not out-build, making nine-figure tuck-ins the default competitive move.