COVID-19 has resulted in online content consumption reaching all time highs. And since users need more content to consume, there is a whole new industry around micro content creation that has taken shape. Riding that wave, InVideo, an Indian browser-based online video creation platform, has announced $15 million Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India. The fundraise is rather quick, considering the platform was launched in April 2019. It now reportedly has more than 800,000 users across 150 countries.
The current Series A funding round which is led by Sequoia Capital India also includes participation from Tiger Global, Hummingbird, RTP Global and Base.
InVideo is an Indian startup founded by Sanket Shah and Harsh Vakharia, who have previously worked on another startup which focuses on creating 10-minute video summaries of non-fiction books. They have also worked on building enterprise grade video creation suite for newsrooms.
Essentially, the platform is a web app which allows users to edit and create videos within their browsers, without requiring them to install any software on their machines. It is made with both amateurs and professionals in mind, and therefore people without any experience in video editing can jump right in and start editing and creating videos, which they can then publish on other platforms such as YouTube or Instagram.
The videos can be created with pre-existing templates or from scratch. The platform offers both video editing and compositing features. It is based on a freemium model, in which it offers basic functionality for free and offers monthly or yearly subscriptions for advanced and premium features starting at $10 per month (yearly plan).
The video creation platform is similar to Canva and Adobe Spark, but InVideo mainly focuses on video creation while the former two offer both image creation (graphic design) and video creation. Another significant difference is that InVideo currently doesn’t offer a smartphone app and is entirely browser-based. The company, in the press release, said that the funding will “accelerate product development and build out InVideo’s collaborative, cross device video creation suite.” InVideo says that some of its users now include household names like P&G, Dropbox, Reuters and ATT.
The rapid rise and adoption of smartphones spawned a generation of mobile apps that offer functionality similar to desktop applications, but in a much more accessible way. One of such apps are video editors. The push to create more accessible applications was a result of limitations of the screen estate of the smartphones and the layman user base. Developers had to make the most out of the small screen sizes and at the same time, create solutions that are not too complicated to be used by a general user. These apps were a hit amongst both general users and professionals who wanted to get things done quickly and easily.
With the new developments in web technologies, web applications are the next big thing. They can serve as good alternatives to traditional desktop applications. The browser-based solutions like InVideo offer cross platform access, meaning that they can both be accessed from a desktops or a smartphones running any operating system. The user only needs internet access and a browser, which translates to high accessibility. The video processing also takes place in the cloud, which means that the processing speed is increased as it is not dependent on the user’s hardware.
“We have a single goal: to replace the current crop of cumbersome and expensive video editing software with an intelligent, yet flexible platform. InVideo cuts the time to create a professional quality video by over 90%, and allows the creator to focus on impact and message,” said Sanket Shah, CEO and co-founder of InVideo.
The simplified and user-friendly solutions might not offer everything a desktop video editing/creation software like Adobe Premiere or Adobe After Effects might offer. But perhaps, for most users, these new simply and intelligent solutions are all they really need to get the job done.
