Microsoft buys video editing startup Clipchamp

Microsoft on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Clipchamp, a developer of browser-based video production tools.

Clipchamp, a startup software company based in Brisbane, Australia, claims to have more than “17 million everyday editors worldwide.” It targets nonprofessional video developers, aiming to make video creation easier, according to a Clipchamp blog by Alexander Dreiling, Clipchamp’s CEO and co-founder.

Microsoft is buying Clipchamp as an Office 365 and Windows addition, according to Microsoft’s announcement:

As a web app that uses the full power of your PC, Clipchamp is a natural fit to extend the cloud-powered productivity experiences in Microsoft 365 for individuals, families, schools, and businesses. It’s also a great fit for Microsoft Windows, which is a platform for boundless creativity.

Exactly how Microsoft plans to integrate Clipchamp wasn’t described, but Microsoft promised that things will get better with more options for current Clipchamp users. Microsoft sees Clipchamp as helping “small business owners, marketers, influencers, students, educators, families, and information workers” tell their stories in instructional videos.

Microsoft also sees video as a good replacement for written documentation, saying that video “has replaced written documentation for instructions, status reports, records of activity, communication, and learning.”

The Clipchamp tools are accessible via Chromium-based browsers, leveraging the computing power of a PC with graphics processing unit acceleration.

Clipchamp offers a free Basic package supporting 480p video, or other packaged products that are priced per month, ranging from $9 to $39 per month. Its top-tier Business Platinum offering lets organizations export 1080p full HD video, with unlimited video stock and custom branding.

The terms of the acquisition weren’t described. The deal was seen by Clipchamp as extending its video work, and giving it a “future legacy.”

“Under no other scenario could our future look more exciting than what’s ahead of us now,” Dreiling stated, regarding Microsoft’s acquisition. Redmond Mag