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Statement, ed. The audio and video editing platform, founded in 2017 by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, has raised $50 million in a Series C round led by OpenAI Startup Fund, in which OpenAI and its partners, including Microsoft, are investing in the startup. – Level companies. Descript is the second startup to receive cash from the fund after Descript’s note-taking app Meme, and Mason says this reflects OpenAI’s confidence in Descript’s AI-powered features.
“I created a statement outlining the idea of building a simple, intuitive, full-powered editing tool for video and audio — an editing tool built for the age of AI,” Mason told TechCrunch in an email interview. “We’re in a generational shift in the way we create content – with AI. That includes the tools creators are using in the description and emerging things like generative AI. The challenge for companies like us is how to make the technology useful and accessible.
Mason would not disclose the post-funding statement, but the funding was also involved Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital and former Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross — It brought the company’s total revenue to $100 million. According to a report from The Information in October, OpenAI agreed to lead a funding statement of around $550 million, more than double the starting price of January 2021 ($260 million).
“We launched the OpenAI Startup Fund to accelerate the impact companies are building on powerful AI in the world, and we’re especially excited about tools that inspire people to innovate,” said OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap, who manages the OpenAI Startup Fund. press release. “It’s clear that by using Expression and talking to customers, it’s breaking down the barriers between ideation and creation by expanding video editing capabilities to a whole new class of creators.”
The display was created as a spinoff of Mason’s audio-guide business, which Bose acquired in 2018. The platform, aimed at podcasters and videographers unfamiliar with professional-level editing tools, allows users to create instant recordings of audio and video. Combine with music, photos and other content using drag and drop tools.
Coinciding with the new cash, Statement today unveiled a slew of editing features — some powered by AI — that will make video editing “as easy as editing a doc or slide,” in Mason’s words. That might be a bit promising. But the new capabilities facilitate aspects of content creation that have historically been tedious.
For example, Description now offers a background removal feature that lets users set their videos to the settings they want. And in text mode, users can edit scripts in Descript, using the platform’s Overdub Voice cloning tech to scrape audio additions.
Introducing a redesigned editing interface that adds features like templates and background removal for video, releasing today. Image Credits: press release
Other highlights in the latest version, called Descript Storyboard, include multi-track screen recording – the recorder is now integrated into the editor, with separate tracks for screen and camera – and free access to stock sound effects, videos, images and music tracks. Description also now offers new video transitions and animations and a variety of templates, including layouts, titles and social clips, along with the ability to create custom project templates.
With the redesign, Mason said the goal was to complement and enhance Descript’s transcript-based editor while leaving the core functionality intact. A new experience called Scenes allows users to break scripts composed in text mode into scenes and arrange images in the same way as slides from the deck. Scenes makes audio additions from overdubs match the script, allowing creators to change a scratch clip in the final shot, for example, without worrying about the tracks falling out of alignment.
“We believe video should be as ubiquitous as documents and slides in every communication toolkit. The only things preventing that are the tools, and we intend to change that,” Mason said. “We think of the main competition as editors — people who don’t make video because the tools are too complex and time-consuming.”
Description is not the only company competing in the audiovisual content editing space. In addition to existing startups like Adobe, there are startups like Reduct.Video, which uses AI, natural language processing, and other technologies to automatically create edited videos.
San Francisco-based Description, which employs about 100 people, is expanding significantly, but in 2019 Overdub acquired AI company Lyrebird to power its feature. Initially focused on audio editing, Descript launched its first video editing feature two years ago in pursuit of the more than $20 billion digital video market.
The strategy appears to be working for Descript, which counts NPR, VICE, The Washington Post and The New York Times among its clients through 2021. While Mason wouldn’t answer questions about revenue, he said Express’s customer base has expanded. In recent months, “major universities and non-profit organizations”, as well as organizations in the public sector.
“The pandemic has changed the way we all create and collaborate – more people are more curious about video at home and more people are starting to explore the creative economy,” said Mason. “Companies are starting to use video for their synchronized communications. At the same time, individual creators are no longer respecting the boundaries between media; YouTubers are starting podcasts, podcasters are flocking to TikTok and more. Our new funding, and the fact that everything I’ve mentioned above is just gaining momentum, is huge to weather any headwinds.” It put us on the spot.
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