Vimeo is acquiring Magisto, a provider of video-editing and production-automation services, aiming to bulk up its video tool set and expand its global customer base.
Magisto, founded in 2009, claims to have 113 million users and that its platform has been used to create more than 450 million videos to date. The company had raised $22.5 million from investors including Qualcomm Ventures, SanDisk Ventures, and Horizons Ventures, according to Crunchbase.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Vimeo is paying an estimated $200 million for Magisto, Israeli business publication Globes reported Monday.
Magisto has 75 employees with offices at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., and offices in Ness Ziona, Israel. IAC-owned Vimeo expects the deal to close by the end of the second quarter.
According to the companies, Magisto enables simple and intuitive short-form video creation for any platform. The combination of Magisto’s professional video creation capabilities with Vimeo’s suite of video hosting, distribution and monetization tools will extend Vimeo’s position as the industry’s most complete video-hosting solution, according to Anjali Sud, CEO of Vimeo.
Most small businesses don’t have the tools, resources or expertise to produce the kind of video output expected across social media, Sud said in announcing the deal. “Magisto’s proprietary technology enables cutting-edge mobile apps and AI-powered editing tools which, combined with Vimeo’s scale and unmatched creator community, will empower more people to tell compelling stories through video,” she said.
Following the acquisition, Vimeo said it will work with Magisto to develop new short-form video creation capabilities for the Vimeo platform. Magisto users also will be able to access Vimeo’s full suite of workflow tools, so they can deploy their videos across platforms with a click of a button and measure performance all in one place.
Vimeo says it currently has around 90 million users in over 150 countries. For the fourth quarter of 2018, IAC reported that Vimeo grew paying subscribers 9% year over year, to 952,000. Vimeo’s revenue for the period increased 28%, to $44.2 million, with average revenue per user climbing 22%.
Magisto is Vimeo’s third major acquisition, following its deal to buy video-on-demand platform provider VHX in 2016 and live-video hosting provider Livestream in 2017. Under Sud, who was named Vimeo’s CEO nearly two years ago, the company has doubled down on catering to its paying creator base with new features after axing its plans to intro a direct-to-consumer subscription VOD product.
Once the acquisition closes, Magisto founder and CEO Oren Boiman and the rest of the company will be joining Vimeo. Boiman will continue to lead Magisto, reporting directly to Vimeo chief product officer and CTO Mark Kornfilt.
In a statement, Boiman said Magisto “level[s] the playing field so that any business can move fast and compete in today’s video-first world. We’re thrilled to join Vimeo’s industry-leading platform, and to power their vision to make professional-quality video creation accessible to all.”
