Pinterest continues to invest in creator tools and videos with today’s news that it has acquired the video creation and editing app Vochi for an undisclosed sum. The company will leverage both Vochi’s intellectual property and its forty-strong team, including its founders, to expand Pinterest’s video creation tools and help its creators create more dynamic videos.
For the last year or so, Pinterest has tried to shift its focus away from a picture-only board – a home for static images that inspire purchases and plans. Instead, Pinterest now sees its potential as a platform for creatives who can share their ideas in video format – be it recipes, DIY craft projects, home ideas, beauty tutorials, fashion ideas or anything else. To take advantage of this activity, Pinterest this spring Idea pins launched – a video-first feature that allows creators to tell their stories using editing tools such as voiceovers, music, transitions, and other interactive effects. Recently, Pinterest introduced a new way for users to browse these videos a TikTok-like “watch” tabwhere it sponsored participation with $ 20 million in Creator Awards.
Pinterest too introduced its own original video content, Creator Originals, and became Help YouTubers make money from their videos by tagging items for sale, participating in affiliate shopping programs, and entering into branding partnerships, among other things.
With Vochi, Pinterest will have the opportunity to provide its users with even more high-quality videos.
The Belarus-based video editing app was founded in 2019 by Ilya Lesun, Anna Buglakova, Vasily Kasnitsky, Sergei Malyutin and incubated by Andrei Avsievich and Yury Melnichek of Bulba Ventures. The app uses a proprietary computer vision-based video segmentation algorithm that applies various effects to specific moving objects in a video or to images in static photos. The Effect Palette includes a “Motion” effect to emphasize movement, a “Glitch” effect, a “Clone” effect, ones that change light and shadow, or those that add animated objects – such as butterflies or neon shapes, and to video much more.
Credit: VOCHI
“To achieve this result, there are two trained [convolutional neural networks] to perform semi-monitored video object segmentation and instance segmentation, ”Vochi CEO Ilya Lesun TechCrunch had explained in a July interview. “Our team also developed a custom video effects rendering engine that enables instant application in 4K on mobile devices. And it works flawlessly without any loss of quality, ”he noted.
The app also offers filters for photos and videos and other traditional editing tools. away earlier this year, The app had around 500,000 monthly active users, of which around 20,000 had committed to a paid subscription.
Pinterest told TechCrunch that it is interested in Vochi because its technology is geared towards Pinterest’s investment in video as a format that helps creators express themselves and it values how quickly the effects can be applied to video.
Credit: VOCHI
“Our vision is to create a place where pinners can go from inspiration to realization, and more creative tools can help us develop that vision further,” said Bin Liu, Head of Creators Engineering at Pinterest. “We’re excited to work with the talented team at Vochi to bring more video creation tools and quality content to our 400 million+ pinners around the world.”
The Vochi team will continue to work in Europe and the Vochi app will remain a standalone experience for the time being instead of being removed from the app stores. (His company website, but didn’t work until this morning.) Pinterest didn’t want to elaborate on how it would later incorporate Vochi’s technology directly into Pinterest, but a smart assumption would be that Pinterest would at some point offer its own video creation and editing experience in its flagship app .
Prior to joining Pinterest, Vochi had raised $ 4.2 million in funding and was on his way to becoming a Series A investor on his last lap These included TA Ventures, Angelsdeck, A.Partners, Startup Wise Guys, Kolos VC and Engel from companies like the Belarusian Verv and the Estonian Unicorn Bolt.
