Facebook completes $735 million Instagram acquisition

Five months after Facebook announced its intention to snatch up Instagram, the social network completed its $735 million acquisition of the photo-sharing startup Thursday.

“So many of us at Facebook love using Instagram to share moments with our friends,” Facebook executive Mike Schroepfer wrote in a post today. “And for so many people, sharing photos with friends is an important part of the Facebook experience. That’s why we’re so excited to bring Instagram to Facebook and see what we can create together.”

Schroepfer also reiterated that Instagram won’t be dissolved. Instead, he said, it will operate separately from its new parent company.

“As we said from the beginning, we are committed to building and growing Instagram independently,” Schroepfer said. “Instagram will continue to serve its community, and we will help Instagram continue to grow by using Facebook’s strong engineering team and infrastructure.”