Vimeo snaps up AI video startup Wibbitz and ‘shoppable’ video tech maker Wirewax to expand its enterprise video tools
https://techcrunch.com/2021/11/10/vimeo-snaps-up-ai-video-startup-wibbitz-and-shoppable-video-tech-maker-wirewax-to-expand-its-enterprise-video-tools/
Vimeo, the B2B video platform that spun out from IAC earlier this year, has made a pair of acquisitions aimed at building out the suite of features and tools it offers to businesses to create and run their own video strategies. The company has picked up short-form AI-based video creation platform Wibbitz; and Wirewax, which has built technology for marketers and other non-technical creatives to make objects in videos “shoppable” or linkable to other outside content.
Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed, but for some context, New York-based Wibbitz originally made its name as an Israeli startup that had built AI-based technology that automatically turned text into videos, a service that helped it raise around $30 million from investors that included a number of strategic backers (that is, customers) like the Associated Press, Bertelsmann, France’s TF1, and the Weather Channel, as well as traditional VCs like Horizons Ventures and Kima Ventures. London-based Wirewax, meanwhile, also had a strategic backer in the form of the BBC, and other investors included Passion Capital and the Plug and Play incubator. It had raised around $7 million. Both have large customers on their books.