‘Hugely exciting’: Microsoft buys Brisbane video creation firm
GLOBAL tech giant Microsoft will buy Brisbane-based Clipchamp, capping a year of dazzling growth for the video creation start-up thanks to headwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Clipchamp, which has more than 17 million registered users worldwide, will extend the cloud-powered productivity experiences in Microsoft 365.
The acquisition was for an undisclosed sum.
Clipchamp was launched in 2014 by chief executive Alex Dreiling who said joining the Microsoft family was “hugely exciting”.
“When you incorporate a company as an unproven founder you don’t know what to expect and what you’re shooting for,” he said.
“And while I always believed we’d be able to achieve something big with Clipchamp, otherwise you can’t survive as a founder, back then on the couch in my lounge room, I didn’t anticipate this was going to be the outcome.”
Mr Dreiling refused to comment on the specifics of the deal other than the company will now be under the “Microsoft umbrella”.
However, Clipchamp has achieved strong growth, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing staff numbers from 30 at the start of 2020 to 75 full time employees.
This year Clipchamp was adding 15,000 new registered users every day, with its customer base ranging from small and medium-sized enterprises, Fortune 500 companies, creators and influencers.
Clipchamp is an in-browser platform that gives users access to video editing tools and features, from simple cropping and resizing, to special effects like transitions, motion titles, and Green Screen.
It has a stock library and hundreds of editable video templates are also available to users.