Dropbox has acquired a cloud-based storage and management service for photos and videos called Loom. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Loom, which was still a beta service as of mid-2013, is a San Francisco-based startup comprised of an 8-member team. It has received backing from investors like Google Ventures, but now it'll severe ties and go with Dropbox. It's not going to become a subsidiary at Dropbox though. Loom has already blocked new people from signing up, and it has begun telling users it will permanently shut down on 16 May.

loom to join dropbox and shut down cloud photo service in may image 3

"We know this is a big deal," announced Loom in a blog post. "After spending some serious time investigating if this was the right move for us, we realized that Dropbox has solved many problems around scaling infrastructure and at Dropbox the Loom team will be able to focus entirely on building great features with a fantastic user experience."

Interestingly, Loom mentioned Dropbox's recently-launched Carousel app in its announcement. The startup said it is looking forward to "creating a home for all of your photos and videos, seamlessly organized, while still keeping them at your fingertips," and then it referred to Dropbox's Carousel as a "single home for all your photos and videos, automatically organized and always with you".

Loom also described the Carousel app in its FAQ section, which certainly begs the question: Is Loom shutting down to specifically join the Carousel team at Dropbox? After all, Carousel and Dropbox are offering paid Loom users the same storage quota they had at Loom - free of charge for an entire year. We've contacted both Loom and Dropbox for a statement, and we will update when that information is known.

Check out the promo video above for more information on what Loom offered its users. And if you are an existing Loom user, remember to export your entire Loom library by next month. Keep in mind your Loom account will no longer be accessible once you initiate the export.