Microsoft has acquired Brisbane in-browser video creation start-up Clipchamp

From small beginnings on his couch to more than 17 million registered users, the man behind this Brisbane video creation start-up has sold it to Microsoft.

Clipchamp CEO and founder Alex Dreiling.

A Brisbane-based video creation start-up has capped a year of dazzling growth thanks to headwinds from the Covid-19 pandemic, landing a deal to be acquired by global software giant Microsoft.

The US-based company’s acquisition of Clipchamp, which has more than 17 million registered users worldwide, will extend the cloud-powered productivity experiences in Microsoft 365 for individuals, families, schools and businesses.

The acquisition was for an undisclosed sum.

Clipchamp was launched in 2014 by chief executive Alex Dreiling who said becoming part of 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.”

Clipchamp chief executive and founder Alex Dreiling.

Mr Dreiling refused to comment on the specifics of the deal other than the company will now be under the “Microsoft umbrella”.

Clipchamp has achieved strong growth, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic with increase staff numbers from 30 at the start of 2020 to 75 current full time employees.

This year Clipchamp was adding to 15,000 new registered users every day, building on its 14 million registered users at February 2021.

Mr Dreiling said from a small start there have been a “lot of wins” over Clipchamp’s journey and an early supporter was former Queensland chief entrepreneur and Shark Tank judge Steve Baxter.

“Steve Baxter was instrumental in our journey, even when he passed the first two times we approached him, because we learned a lot,” he said.

“That has kept us motivated and shooting for even bigger goals, from new investors and partners to our incredible customer and team growth.

“In our initial discussions with Microsoft we came to the realisation fairly quickly that there was a strong alignment between our two companies, from our similar cultures to our ways of working. Mix in the potential for our platform and its distribution and it became a no-brainer.”

Clipchamp founder and CEO Alex Dreiling.

Mr Baxter said he invested with Clipchanp in 2017 after initially talking to them three years earlier.

“I stayed in touch with them and I liked their technology. I saw the number of users coming on board and they were gracious enough to let me invest. It’s been a good run and they’re a great smart team.”

Clipchamp is an in-browser platform which 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. It recently partnered with Dropbox and Box to enable customers to import and export their content with ease.

The company, billed as the ‘online video editor that empowers anyone to tell stories worth sharing’, was recently named one of Australia’s top-2o rising tech stars.

“By building deeper product integrations with partners including Google, Microsoft and Pinterest, customers can create videos with greater ease and accessibility, by importing their favourite assets and exporting to their primary channels,” Mr Dreiling said.

“Our integration partnership with visual inspiration platform Pinterest is particularly exciting as the company boasts a global monthly active user base of over 459 million. The new collaboration allows Clipchamp users to create video Pins from our platform using one of our Pinterest video templates.”

Clipchamp joins a string of other recent Microsoft acquisitions including game studio ZeniMax Media and speech recognition outfit Nuance Communications.

Microsoft corporate vice president, office media group Chris Pratley said he was “bubbling over with excitement”.

He said Clipchamp’s technical approach is to combine the simplicity of a web app with the ability to process video using the full computing power of a PC with graphics processing unit acceleration, something that was formerly limited to traditional video applications.

“Small business owners, marketers, influencers, students, educators, families, and information workers of all types need the capability to make great videos with minimal effort,” he said.

“Whether it’s a 10-second social media ad, a 2-minute pitch for a product, or a 20-minute instructional video, Clipchamp and Microsoft will provide the tools and experience you need.

Mr Pratley said describe the Clipchamp team “as kindred spirits” and a creative powerhouse dedicated to quality and great customer outcomes.

“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,” he said.

“It’s also a great fit for Microsoft Windows, which is a platform for boundless creativity.

“We will be doing incredible things together — more to come on that later.”

Originally published as Microsoft has acquired Brisbane in-browser video creation start-up Clipchamp