Just about everything online these days, be it products or services, comes with a video either explaining, selling or showcasing. All those videos have to get made somehow, and there’s no way, both in terms of budget and in terms of available talent, that all of them are professionally shot and edited. Smartphones and entry-level cameras are getting better at making videos look good without much post processing, however, and Videolicious is hoping to be the tool that gets all that raw footage quickly edited and presentable on the web. Today, the company announced a $1.4 million round to help it do just that.
The round, which includes Amazon.com, Venture51, Howard Lindzon and Joanne Wilson, among others, will help Videolicious focus on enhancements to its product. That product is a simple web- and app-based video editing tool, which incorporates transitions, b-roll, soundtracks, narration and logos in a simplified package designed to be even easier and less time-consuming to use than consumer-oriented desktop software like iMovie.
“We saw the power of video to drive sales and we started asking the question: ‘Why doesn’t everybody use video to drive sales?’,” Videolicious CEO Matt Singer said in an interview, who’s previously worked first-hand with video-based selling via shopping television like QVC. “Wouldn’t it be better to have a video for every apartment in the world, a video for every product in the world, and the answer to that question is that video is extremely expensive and time-consuming to create.”
Given the company’s goals and approach, it makes sense that Amazon.com would be counted among its investors. Product videos are an increasingly important part of their site, and of the internet in general. Every Kickstarter campaign has a pitch video, for instance, including some with Hollywood talent. Standing out in that crowd means having access to decent tools, at a bare minimum, and that’s something Videolicious hopes it can provide.
The rise of mobile has also meant that the tools and resources available to the average person for video creation are much better. Singer explained that better phones and better built-in editing tools, far from cutting down on its appeal, actually help it immensely.
“In 2007, most people did not have a high quality camera on their person, and now they do,” he said. “More and more people have the raw ability to create the footage, and they have better processing power, so we just think the ocean gets wider and wider.” So while things like iMovie for iOS are sort of like Photoshop in terms of their power and required attention, tools like Videolicious still have an important place as essentially the PowerPoint of the online video world.
