Cinemagram, an app for creating and sharing animated GIFs, adds 1 million users in six weeks

The animated GIF is one of the few native art forms on the web, a delightful micro-movie which has spawned countless memes. Cinemagram combines the stylish filters and simple sharing of Instagram with a app that allows users to turn short three-second videos into animated GIFs. In the six weeks since it was released as a free app on iOS, it has added more than one million users.

“We released it as a paid app back in February and tried to keep the community small while we worked out the kinks,” said co-founder and CEO Temo Chalasani. “We built a strong group of creative minds, figured out to flag inappropriate content, and since launching the free version in March, have just seen incredible growth.”

Chalasani is in Silicon Valley right now raising money — we hear a round in the million dollar range. Cinemagram was created by Factyle, an app studio where Chalasani and his co-founder work. Previously they created Smartr, a social news reader, which they have since folded to focus full-time on Cinemagram.

Tens of thousands of cinemagrams are created each day, and it’s quite a global audience. “Our biggest markets are the United States, China, and Brazil says Chalasani. “I think that speaks to what an intuitive and web native art form this is.”

Next up on the to do list is hiring, the company is currently just two people, and launching an Android version.

Here are a few more fun examples from the service: