Etsy announced today that it has acquired Mixel to have its team work on the Etsy mobile experience.

Mixel users can breathe a sigh of relief, however, as the company will keep the Mixel product up and running. Users can still download past collages, and make new ones, though they are shutting down the social network aspect.

“Going forward, the Mixel team will be focused on the many exciting challenges we have before us at Etsy,” Mixel says in an FAQ. “However, we still wanted to provide a path forward for Mixel users, who have produced such great work with our previous version. Because the majority of our maintenance efforts have gone towards the social network aspect of Mixel, it made sense to phase that out, thereby dramatically simplifying the upkeep of Mixel. This lets users still have access to the unique functionality, and lets us continue to improve Mixel as our bandwidth allows.”

“The Mixel team — CEO Khoi Vinh, his co-founder Scott Ostler, and colleagues Akiva Leffert and Roy Stanfield — will turn their focus to Etsy’s mobile future,” writes Etsy’s Randy Hunt in a blog post. “As you may remember, in 2012 we launched apps for iPad and Android, and translated our iPhone app into three new languages with added seller tools. Whew! Mobile visits on Etsy grew 244% in the past year, and right now they represent a steady 25% of visits year round. That’s not too shabby, but something quite astounding happened this past holiday season: almost one in three visits came from shoppers on their mobile devices. We expect that trend to accelerate, so doing more with mobile is one of our top priorities in 2013.”

“We’re always on the lookout for ways we can make the total experience of Etsy better — out in the world, on your computer, and in your pocket,” he says. “Today we’re taking another step forward, by welcoming the creators of Mixel to our staff. These talented designers and developers built a mobile app that helps you make and share fun, beautiful photo collages. Now they are going to help us do even more with Etsy’s mobile platform. It’s going to be awesome.”

Etsy saw about 1.5 million new members and 1.53 billion page views in December, while also experimenting with a physical store in New York.