Microsoft Acquires Clipchamp, a Browser-Based Video Editing App

Microsoft has purchased Clipchamp, a Web-based video editing application for an undisclosed amount. The tech giant announced the acquisition of the startup through a blog post on Tuesday, September 7. The deal will allow Microsoft to bolster Clipchamp's video editing technology with Windows and integrate the product offerings available through Microsoft 365. Clipchamp is already present as an app on the Microsoft Store.

"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 (GPU) acceleration, something that was formerly limited to traditional video applications", said Chris Pratley, Corporate Vice President, Office Media Group at Microsoft in a blog post. The financial terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed publicly.

Microsoft could be looking at integrating Clipchamp with Microsoft 365. Pratley added, "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."

Clipchamp uses a PC's GPU acceleration to render clips faster. It has different templates, filters, transitions, stock media, and styles for social media posts, gaming clips, and educational purposes. It offers support for editing multi-track audio as well as video compositing. The Web app allows screen recording and webcam recording too.

Clipchamp CEO and co-founder Alexander Dreiling also announced the decision to sell the app to Microsoft via a blog post.

"Startup founders go through different stages from incorporating a business, to hiring the first employees, raising several rounds of funding and eventually they will try to exit through an acquisition or going public. And while an exit event is the end of a startup journey, it is also the beginning of a new journey. In our case that will be a journey under a Microsoft umbrella," Dreiling said.

Clipchamp was founded in 2013 in Brisbane, Australia. In July, the company announced in a press release that it had achieved the milestone of 17 million registered users on its platform. The company also disclosed that 390,000 companies use Clipchamp.