Phhhoto, an app described as an “instant animated camera”, used by over 10 million people will be shutting down because it couldn’t “make enough money to keep the company running”.

According to TechCrunch, Instagram’s Boomerang is a copycat of the app which posed stiff competition that Phhhoto couldn’t deal with.

“Our commitment to creativity and camera culture was relentless, but we didn’t grow fast enough to compete,” the company explained in a post on its website.

“Over the next few days, key aspects of the app will stop working. Hour by hour, feature by feature, Phhhoto will go offline until nothing is left. You’ll still be able to keep your app and shoot moving pictures — but you’ll need to post them elsewhere,” the company said.

The website let users take moving pictures it described as “quicker than video, better than stills”, and add filters and music to them. The app maker said over 400 million images were created on the platform.

TechCrunch quoted co-founder Champ Bennett as saying the company knew Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, and his product team were “quietly using Phhhoto almost a year before Boomerang was released.”

“You have to give massive respect to anyone at their scale, but I’m not sure Instagram has a creative bone in their entire body. That’s a weakness we tried to exploit,” he added.

The report added parent company Hypno will focus on its original business of physical photobooths for events.