Month

Year Event type Details

and date
Kevin Systrom starts working on the project with the name
2009 October 21 Product
Burbn.[1]
Systrom closes a US$500,000 seed funding round with
2010 March 5 Funding Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz while working
on Burbn.[2]
2010 May 19 Team Mike Krieger joins the Burbn project[3]
Instagram launches (from Systrom and Krieger) with the
2010 October 6 Product hope of facilitating communication through images.[4] It
nabs 100K users in one week.[5]
December
2010 Growth Instagram hits 1 million users.[6]
12
Instagram adds hashtags to help users discover both
photographs and each other.[7] Instagram encourages users
2011 January Product to make tags both specific and relevant, rather than tagging
generic words like "photo", to make photographs stand out
and to attract like-minded Instagram users.[8]
Instagram has raised US$7 million in Series A funding
from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital,
2011 February 2 Funding Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam
D'Angelo.[9] The deal values Instagram at around $25
million.[10]
2011 June Growth Instagram hits 5 million monthly active users.[11]
2011 September Growth Instagram hits 10 million monthly active users.[11]
Version 2.0 of Instagram goes live in the App Store (iOS)
and included new and live filters, instant tilt–shift, high
2011 September Product
resolution photographs, optional borders, one-click rotation,
and an updated icon.[12]
Instagram is released for Android phones running the 2.2
2012 April 3 Product Froyo version of the OS,[13] and it is downloaded more than
one million times in less than one day.[14]
Instagram raises US$50 million from venture capitalists for
2012 April 9 Funding a share of the company; the process values Instagram at
US$500 million.[10]
2012 April 30 Growth Instagram hits 50 million monthly active users.[11]
Facebook acquires Instagram for approximately
2012 April Acquisitions
US$1 billion in cash and stock.[15][16]
Vine (service), a short-form video sharing service,
2012 June Competition
launches.[17]
Instagram updates its Terms of Service, granting itself the
December
2012 Product right – starting on January 16, 2013 – to sell users' photos
17
to third parties without notification or compensation.[18][19]
2013 February Growth Instagram hits 100 million monthly active users.[11]
Instagram introduces photo tagging and "Photos of You," a
2013 May Product new tab on a user’s profile listing every picture he or she is
tagged in.[20]
2013 June 13 Product Instagram launches video sharing.[21]
Instagram makes it easier to share posts by adding links to
2013 July Product
embed photos and videos.[20]
2013 September Growth Instagram hits 150 million monthly active users.[11]
Instagram deletes the account of Canadian photographer
Petra Collins after Collins posted a photo of herself in
2013 October Controversy which pubic hair was visible beneath her bikini bottom.[22]
Collins claims the account deletion was unfounded because
it did not break any of Instagram's terms and conditions.[23]
Instagram acts in response to a 2013 investigation from the
BBC regarding the role of Instagram in sales of illicit
drugs. The BBC had discovered that users, mostly located
2013 November Controversy in the US, were posting images of drugs they were selling
and then completing transactions via instant messaging
applications such as WhatsApp Messenger. Corresponding
hashtags are blocked as part of the company's response.[24]
Instagram introduces sponsored post advertising targeting
2013 November Product
US users.[25][26]
Snapchat announces that it will poach Emily White,
2013 December Team director of business operations of Instagram. Emily White
will move to Snapchat in January.[27]
Instagram adds Direct, a feature that allows users to send
December photos to specific people directly from the app. Instagram's
2013 Product
12 primary intention with the Direct feature is to compete
against messaging services, including Snapchat.[28][29]
2014 March Growth Instagram hits 200 million monthly active users.[11]
Instagram launches new series of editing tools – allowing
2014 June Product users to minutely customize image characteristics like
brightness, contrast, highlights, and shadows.[30]
The company's Global Head of Business and Brand
Development – a new position for Instagram – is
2014 August Team
announced. Facebook's former Regional Director James
Quarles was assigned the role.[31]
Instagram makes itself more advertising-friendly by
introducing a suite of business tools aimed at brands which
2014 August 21 Product
offer insights and analytics related to their use of the image-
sharing network.[32]
2014 December Growth Instagram hits 300 million monthly active users.[33]
In a similar incident to Collins's, Instagram deletes
2015 January Controversy Australian Photography and Fashion Agency Sticks and
Stones Agency's Instagram account because of a
 photograph including pubic hair sticking out of bikini
bottoms.[34]
Instagram bolsters up its advertising capabilities, testing ad
formats that prompt users to do things such as installing an
2015 June Product
app, signing up for an email newsletter, or link to a
retailer’s site to purchase a product.[35]
September Instagram allows 30-second ads for all advertisers – twice
2015 Product
9 the 15-second limit given for users.[36]
2015 September International Instagram ads go global.[37]
2015 September Growth Instagram hits 400 million monthly active users.[33]
Instagram launches Boomerang,[38] an app where the user
shoots a one-second burst of five photos that is turned into
2015 October Product
a silent video that plays forwards and then reverses in a
loop.[39]
November Instagram kills off support from feed-reading
2015 Product
17 applications.[40]
Instagram starts enabling users to easily switch between
2016 February Product
multiple accounts.[41]
The Daily Star reports 'one million' explicit porn films
found on Instagram. The videos were unearthed by tech
2016 March Controversy
blogger Jed Ismael, who says he's discovered over one
million porn films on the site.[42][43]
Instagram switches its feed from chronological to
2016 March 15 Product
algorithmically-driven best posts first.[44]
Instagram introduces a new look as well as an updated icon
and app design for Instagram. Inspired by the previous app
2016 May 11 Product
icon, the new icon represents a simpler camera and the
rainbow lives on in gradient form.[45]
Instagram announces that it will launch new business
2016 May Product tools – including analytics that allow users to see audience
demographics, post impressions, and reach.[46][47]
Instagram announces that it has over 500 million monthly
2016 June Growth
active users.[11]
2016 June Product Instagram announces instant translation feature.[48]
Instagram announces that it will start allowing users to
filter out comment streams – giving users the choice about
2016 July Product which comments are acceptable or not for themselves. It
also starts allowing users the opportunity to entirely turn off
comments.[49]
Instagram launches Instagram Stories. The product works
like Snapchat Stories: users can post 24-hour ephemeral
2016 August 2 Product photo and video slideshows that disappear.[50] Instagram
CEO Kevin Systrom openly admits that the feature is
copied from Snapchat, based on the success of Snapchat
 stories.[51] The feature is viewed as part of Instagram's goal
of attracting users away from Snapchat.[52]
Instagram brings in Image Zoom, allowing users to zoom
2016 August Product
into images.[53]
Instagram removes the Photo Maps feature from its mobile
2016 September Product apps, claiming that the feature was not widely used on the
platform.[54]
Instagram launches a desktop client for the first time on the
2016 October 13 Product Windows 10 platform, which can be downloaded via the
Windows Store.
Instagram launches live video, which allows users to
broadcast live on Instagram, for up to one hour. Live videos
on Instagram are not preserved, and are removed from the
November service once a user is done broadcasting. Instagram also
2016 Product
21 launches disappearing photos and videos for the Instagram
Direct feature on the same day, and images and videos sent
using this method disappear after a certain amount of
time.[55][56]
December Instagram announces that it has over 600 million monthly
2016 Growth
15 active users.[57]
February Instagram launches a feature allowing users to post multiple
2017 Product
22 photos in one post, in a slideshow-like fashion.[58]
Instagram announces the launch of IGTV, a video platform
intended to compete against YouTube. Users will now be
able to upload videos of up to 10 minutes, while creators
2018 June 20 Product and accounts with larger audiences can upload videos of up
to one hour. IGTV will have a dedicated button in the
Instagram app, in addition to a standalone app released that
same day.[59]