Location-Based Video Editing App Clinch Heads To The Deadpool

Mobile video app Clinch (not to be confused with Klout’s Cinch) is heading to the deadpool, but the company itself lives on, developing products for the digital advertising space. First introduced in 2012, Clinch’s app automatically threaded together video clips and photos based on location, allowing users to then customize the resulting mobile video further by selecting their own backgrounds, themes, and music.

What was different about this app was that it didn’t just allow for automated movie creation, it also allowed for collaborative movies, mixed with content from others around you. The app was ideal for use cases like concert footage, sports events, conferences, and more.

5However, the app was in a competitive space, where there’s not really been a breakout hit. Animoto is probably one of the better-known of the “automated video” variety, and it’s still alive and kicking, though it’s arguable that it never became a household name the way social networking and messaging apps like Snapchat or Whatsapp, for example, have become – and certainly not in the way video-sharing apps like Instagram and Twitter’s Vine are known today.

Plus, there are a number of other apps offering similar mobile video editors, including Flipagram, which makes short videos from photos, Sharalike, and others. And of course, any automated movie-making solution will have to go up against the built-in mobile tools for creating movies, like Apple offers with iMovie, or Google+ offers with its GIF-like “Auto Awesome” feature.

HTC, Samsung, and Blackberry also offered their own automatic “story making” apps, TechCrunch previously noted.

In an email from the team at Clich sent out late Sunday night, the company explains that it has evolved beyond its consumer-facing app over the years, and is now focusing on its core technology development, Smart Programmatic Creative solutions for the digital advertising business. The company offers a patent-pending HTML5 ad-rendering engine that combines location, user and product information in real-time, and renders the ad on the client-side browser with dynamic, always up-to-date content.

Its clients and partners now include those focused around e-commerce platforms, media and ad agencies, DSPs and several direct clients.

Because of its shifted focus, the team says they can no longer continue to support the mobile application. The app will be removed from both the iTunes App Store and Google Play on September 15th. Users have up until that date to download their movies, as there will be no support afterwards.

“We are writing you with mixed emotions as we are excited for the success of our new products and the road ahead of us, but are sad to shut down this entertaining, useful app we’ve created,” the email expresses.

We’ve reached out the company for an update on its business as whole, in light of this recent news and will add more here if and when they respond.

Notes CEO Oz Etzioni, the company will remain based in both Israel and NYC following the consumer app’s shutdown, and is planning on expanding after finalizing a funding round.