Showbox’s goal is to be the online editing platform of choice for non-professional video makers. The Tel Aviv-based startup just closed a $8 million Series A, which will be used to on product development and new features.
Investors include Charles Petruccelli, the former president of American Express Global Business Travel; Brad Wechsler, chairman of IMAX; Wix co-founder and chief technology officer Giora Kaplan; and TPG Capital senior partner Karl Peterson.
According to a study by Cisco, videos will account for 80 percent of all consumer traffic by 2018, up from 64 percent last year. Along with YouTube, the introduction of autoplaying videos on Facebook and Twitter means the medium is increasingly important for anyone who wants to build an online brand.
Showbox founders Tomer Afek and Effie Atad believe that there is still a huge gap, however, between editing tools for amateurs and professional studios.
“Brands continue to spend more on video, yet cite the cost of production as the biggest barrier,” said Afek in an email.
Showbox, which uses a freeium model and is currently in closed beta with a waitlist of 50,000 users, wants to narrow the gap by providing a wide array of show formats (like top five lists or tutorials) that users can drop footage into, before fine-tuning their videos with editing tools, title card and end slate templates, automatically-generated backgrounds, and free footage from companies like Getty Images, Reuters, and Dori Media.
The site also claims that it renders footage more quickly than other online platforms. Videos can also be hosted on Showbox and embedded on other sites.
Once it launches, Showboat will compete with a large selection of online video editors, including YouTube Editor, WeVideo, and Magisto.
Afek believes, however, that “current solutions on the market are either incomplete, focusing only on a single or partial element of the video production process, or are costly and/or geared only towards experienced professionals.”
Showbox wants to set itself apart with tools for every part of the production process, from filming on a PC or mobile camera, to formatting and preparing a video to be embedded or uploaded to another site.
For creators who are worried that their content will look like every other video edited with Showbox, the platform claims to have enough templates, genre formats, and third-party content to make sure clips look distinct from one another.
“No two shows will ever look the same, even if the same format is chosen. Our platform is built modularly to allow the creation of endless formats,” said Afek. “Offering a variety of formats in multiple genres assists the user in creating a unique serial brand and greatly reduces the need for post-production, as content is dropped into the formatting toolbox—allowing the show to essentially build itself.”