Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced Facebook is acquiring Instagram in a deal worth US$1bn.

The photo-sharing start-up recently passed 30m members. Particularly since picking up a slew of new users with its Android app launch, Instagram has become one of the most important for taking and sharing photos on mobile devices, so it makes perfect sense that Facebook would want the company.

For weeks, it’s been rumoured Instagram was raising a round that valued the company at US$500m. Late on Monday night SA time, Facebook said it paid twice that amount for Instagram, around $1bn in cash and stock.

Zuckerberg explained the purchase on his Facebook page. He tried to calm any fears that Instagram would be swallowed into Facebook or that it would no longer integrate with numerous third-party services.

“For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.”

The young founder continued to state that rather than simply integrating Instagram into Facebook, the company would honour the two applications’ “different experiences that complement each other” and would continue to build and maintain Instagram and a separate beast — up to and including allowing Instagram photos to be shared on rival social networks. The Instagram product will have the benefit of Facebook’s world-class engineering team without the handcuffs of any Facebook exclusivity.

“Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people,” Zuckerberg said.

“This is an important milestone for Facebook because it’s the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users,” the CEO concluded. “We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all. But providing the best photo-sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together.” — Ben Popper, VentureBeat