Vochi, a video creation and editing app, was acquired by Pinterest for an undisclosed sum. The company will be bringing in Vochi and its team to help them make more dynamic videos and expand the set of video creation tools.
Over the past year or so,Pinterest has been attempting to shift its focus away from being just an image pinboard to a place where static images used to inspire purchases and plans. Instead, it sees its potential as a platform for creators who can share their ideas in video format, whether that is recipes, home décor ideas, beauty tutorials, fashion ideas, or anything else. This spring, in order to take advantage of this activity,Pinterest launched ideas pins, a video-first feature that lets creators tell their stories using editing tools like voiceovers, music, transitions, and other interactive effects. The new way for users to browse these videos in a TikTok-like "Watch" tab encouraged participation with $20 million in creator awards.
The creator of the original video content on the platform, called Creator's Originals, has been helped by the platform to make money from their videos by using tags for sale, participating in affiliate shopping programs, and engaging in brand partnerships.
With Vochi, it will be possible to bring even more quality video to its users.
The video editing app was founded by six people in the year 2019: Ilya Lesun, Anna Buglakova, Vasily Kasnitsky, Sergei Malyutin, and Andrei Avsievich and Yury Melnichek. The app uses a proprietary computer vision-based video and photo segmentation algorithm to apply effects to specific moving objects in a video or to images in static photos. Its effect lineup includes a variety of effects, including a burst of butterflies or neon shapes, a "clones" effect, and others that change the light and shadows.
The image is called VOCHI.
Vochi CEO Ilya Lesun had explained in a July interview that there are two trained neural networks that can perform semi-supervised Video Object Segmentation and Instance Segmentation. Our team developed a custom rendering engine for video effects that allows instant application in 4K on mobile devices. He had noted that it works perfectly without quality loss.
The app has filters for photos and video. Around 20,000 people had committed to a paid subscription as of earlier this year, as the app had 500,000 monthly active users.
Vochi is aligned with the investment thatPinterest has made in video as a format to help creators express themselves, and it appreciated how quickly the effects could be applied to video.
The image is called VOCHI.
Pinners can go from inspiration to realization, and having more creator tools can help us further this vision. Vochi is excited to work with us 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 not be removed from the app stores. As of this morning, the company's vochi.app website was not functioning. They moved to another website, but didn't update their app's listing page with the correct information. A smart assumption would be that Pinterest would eventually offer its own video creation and editing experience within its flagship app.
Vochi had raised $4.2 million in funding before joining Pinterest, and was on the path to a Series A.
