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Sept. 25, 2018 / 12:38 AM

Instagram co-founders step down 6 years after sale to Facebook

Monday, Instagram's co-founders stepped down six years after selling the company to Facebook for $1 billion. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

Monday, Instagram's co-founders stepped down six years after selling the company to Facebook for $1 billion. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The founders of Instagram on Monday announced they will step down from the popular social media company.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom and co-founder Mike Krieger sold the company to Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion. Despite the sale, they remained at the helm of the photo-sharing site. Monday, Systrom announced they are "ready for our next chapter."

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"We're planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again," Systrom said in a statement. "Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that's what we plan to do.

"We remain excited for the future of Instagram and Facebook in the coming years as we transition from leaders to two users in a billion. We look forward to watching what these innovative and extraordinary companies do next."

Instagram has been one of Facebook's most successful acquisitions. The site had about 30 million users when it was purchased in 2012. By June of this year, that number reached 1 billion.

As the number of users increased, so has the value of the company.

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In the same month Instagram reached 1 billion users, Bloomberg Intelligence valued the company at more than $100 billion.

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