Instagram originated with Stanford graduate Kevin Systrom, who had previously worked at Google. His initial creation was Burbn, so named because of his interest in whiskey and bourbon. Inspired by the popularity of Foursquare and other location-based platforms, Burbn allowed users to post check-ins along with photos, which were not yet a staple of social posting. Systrom secured venture funding for Burbn and went on to recruit fellow Stanford graduate Mike Krieger, who had worked on the social media platform Meebo. They reworked the concept to focus on photographs taken on mobile devices and renamed it Instagram. Systrom and Krieger embraced minimalism with their prototype, concentrating on images (with the option to add filters), comments, and “liking” features. The duo also decided to eschew a Web version for an iOS app that would capitalize on the much improved photographic capabilities of the iPhone 4. They finalized the app in a few months, posting the platform’s first photos in July 2010. Instagram was released to the public in Apple’s App Store on October 6, 2010, and reached 25,000 users on its first day. Less than three months later it had one million users, a phenomenal achievement.

As Instagram’s popularity grew rapidly, the company drew the interest of various investors and potential buyers. In April 2012, 18 months after its launch, Instagram was bought for $1 billion in cash and stock by Facebook. The acquisition came about a month before Facebook’s initial public offering.