Magisto

Magisto is a web application and mobile app for automated video editing and storytelling aimed at consumers and businesses. According to the website, Magisto aims to solve the problem of video editing being too complicated and time-consuming by letting users edit their videos in a click.^[1]

Technology

The Israel-based company has built its service on patent-pending image analysis technology that analyzes unedited videos and identifies the most interesting parts. The system recognizes faces, animals, landscapes, action sequences, movements and other interesting content within the video, as well as analyzes speech and audio. These scenes are then edited together, along with music and effects, into share-worthy clips.^[2][3]

Automatic video editing

Automatic video editing products have emerged over the past decade in order to make video editing accessible to a broader consumer market. Automatic video editing technology does the work for the user, eliminating the need for a deeper understanding or knowledge of how to use complicated video editing software. Muvee Technologies introduced autoProducer, the first PC-based automatic video editing platform, in 2001. Other solutions, including Sony’s MovieShaker and Roxio Cinematic, followed in 2002.^[4] As smartphones and consumer video recording devices become more prevalent the need for an easier video solution has led to a renewed interest in automatic video editing.^[5]

Magisto has been compared to Videolicious and Animoto; however, Videolicious is not available on Android.^[6]

Music

The Magisto app contains a library of music for users to utilize in their video creations. The music, largely by independent artists, is sorted by mood and is licensed for in-app use.^[7]

Featured songs by theme

As of June 2015, Magisto's music library included, not comprehensively, the following themes and songs:^[8]

History

2009

Magisto was founded in 2009 as SightEra (LTD) by Dr. Oren Boiman (CEO) and Dr. Alex Rav-Acha (CTO) with the mission of making it easy for anyone to edit videos, regardless of video editing expertise. The inspiration for Magisto came when CEO Boiman’s first daughter was born in 2005. Boiman, like many others, was frustrated with the fact that had to spend many hours editing together videos of his daughter and he saw the need for an easier way to capture and share video memories without the time-consuming process of video editing.^[9]

2011

• Magisto was launched publicly on September 20, 2011, as an automatic video editing web application through which users can upload their unedited video footage, choose a title and soundtrack and have their video edited for them automatically. Unlike other video editing software and applications, Magisto doesn’t require any knowledge of how to edit videos.^[10]
• On September 21, 2011 Magisto was added to YouTube Create’s collection of video production applications, introducing the application to the YouTube community.^[11]

2012

• The Magisto iPhone app was launched publicly at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. At CES, the company was also declared winner of the 2012 CES Mobile App Showdown.
• On August 28, 2012 Magisto launched the Android app on Google Play.
• On September 13, 2012 Magisto launched a Chrome application and announced Google Drive integration.

2013

• On March 7, 2013, Magisto reported reaching 5 million users.^[12]
• Google listed Magisto as an ^[13] Editors’ Choice on its list of Best Apps of 2013
• In September 2013, the company reported that 10 million users had downloaded the App.^[14]

2014

In February, 2014 Magisto reported that they had 20 million users and were gaining 2 million new users per month.^[15] The company also confirmed the latest investment from Russian internet company, Mail.Ru Group.

In September 2014, Magisto rolled out a new feature called, ‘Instagram Ready’ which allows users to upload 15 second clips that are automatically formatted for Instagram.^[16] In the same month Magisto also launched  a new feature for iOS and Android users, called ‘Surprise Me’^[17] which creates video from still photographs on users’ smartphones.

In 2014, Magisto was placed 9th on the 2014 Deloitte Israel Technology Fast 50 list, as one of the fastest growing technology companies,^[18] and was named as a finalist in the Red Herring’s Top 100 Europe award.^[19] 

2015

In January 2015, Magisto participated in a statistical analysis on the habits of smartphone users in conjunction with Gigaom.^[20]

In July 2015, Magisto released an editing theme dedicated to Jerry Garcia, endorsed by his daughter Trixie.^[21]

Funding Rounds

In 2010, the company received more than $5.5 million in series A and B from Magma ventures Partners and Horizons ventures.

In September 2011, at the same time as the public launch of their automatic video editing web application, Magisto announced a $5.5 million Series B funding round led by Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures. Li Ka-Shing is known for making early-stage investments in companies like Facebook, Spotify, SecondMarket and Siri.^[22][23] Other investors include Magma Venture Partners, which has participated in three rounds of funding for Magisto.^[24]

In 2014, the company received $2 million in Venture Funding from Magma ventures Partners, Qualcomm Ventures, Horizons Ventures and the Mail.Ru Group.

Business model

Magisto has a freemium business model. Users can create their video clips for free. However, they plan to offer premium features like HD ([High-definition video]), unbranded videos and the ability to download videos in the future.^[25]

Awards

Magisto won first place at Technonomy3, an annual Internet Technology start-up competition in Israel. Judges of the competition included Jeff Pulver, TechCrunch editor Mike Butcher, investor Yaron Samid, Bessemer Venture Partners Israel partner Adam Fisher and Brad McCarty of The Next Web.^[26]

See also

References

External links

• Online video editing by Magisto