GoPro today announced the acquisition of two startups to address one of the company’s sore spots: Video editing. Stupeflix and Vemory are the companies behind the mobile apps Replay and Splice, respectively. GoPro tells TechCrunch the company spent $105 million on the two companies combined and that all the employees from these companies will join GoPro’s ranks but work from their current locations of Paris and Austin, Texas.
The two apps should bring new tricks to GoPro’s mobile offering. Replay, by Stupeflix, let’s uses select video clips and combine them into a single film complete with transitions and music — clearly something GoPro users would want. Splice, from Vemory, is a more robust mobile video application that provides a lot of tools not found in GoPro’s mobile editing app.
Most GoPro users can agree, it’s a pain to edit and share captured content from GoPro’s own mobile app. It’s desktop app isn’t that much better, either. The company thrives at building hardware and developing a brand, but it’s clearly not great at building software — and with that the complete user experience that’s needed in today’s ecosystem. So $474 million cash in the bank, the company went out and spent a chunk of its cash and equity two companies that can hopefully fix the problem.
