YouTube has just announced that it has acquired Directr, a startup that specializes in mobile video editing for businesses. Directr has an iOS app that makes it easy for users to shoot and edit short video clips.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, made the acquisition to beef up its advertising strategy. The company said that it is looking to provide creators with tools to make better videos.
"Directr is joining the YouTube ads team, where they'll help us make it easier for advertisers to create and upload awesome videos," YouTube said in a Google+ post. The company added that aside from making the Directr app free for iOS users, there will be no other changes for the service in the immediate future.
The Directr team confirmed the acquisition.
"Our small band of scrappy film lovers set out 2 years ago to help regular folks make great video. Today we are incredibly excited to take the next step on that journey and announce that we are joining the video ads team at YouTube," the company said in a blog post.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, it may have involved a modest investment from YouTube, since the Boston-based company only raised $1.7 million in funding from Boston Seed Capital, Nextview Ventures and Advancit Capital, as well as individual investors led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
The Directr acquisition coincides with Google's purchase of another mobile company. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had purchased Emu, a startup that is aimed at smartphone messaging. Emu, which describes its service as "texting with a built-in assistant," has an iPhone app that combines messaging and artificial intelligence. Emu said that its app uses natural language processing to understand messages then provides users with information to help them reserve a table or buy movie tickets.
The terms of the deal for Emu's acquisition were also not disclosed. Due to the purchase, Emu's services have been shut down. Its app has been taken out of the App Store and existing users will no longer be able to send and receive messages. It is still unclear when the Emu app would go back online.
