SAN FRANCISCO, September 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Secures $5.5M Series B Funding Round Led By Horizons Ventures, Including Original Investor Magma Venture Partners

Magisto today announced the public availability of the company's free, web-based video editing service that automatically turns any unedited video footage into short, fun movies to share with friends and family. Additionally, the company also announced a $5.5 million Series B Round led by Li Ka-shing's private investment arm, Horizons Ventures that also includes original investor Magma Venture Partners.

Starting today, anyone can use Magisto to turn unedited video footage into high quality, share-worthy movies with titles, music, and all the best scenes. People no longer need to learn new software or spend days sifting through videos trying to do their own video editing. With Magisto, users simply upload their videos, pick a title, select their music, and with the click of a button Magisto goes to work. The company's proprietary technology automatically finds the best footage in the videos and edits them into a short, fun movie that is ready to share on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or via email.

"Kids. Special events. Family vacations. Everybody is shooting hours and hours of video, but nobody knows what to do with it," said Magisto Co-Founder and CEO Oren Boiman. "The average person doesn't edit videos. It's hard to do, and most people don't have the desire or time to learn video editing programs. So they either post long boring videos nobody wants to watch, or they save them on their hard drive - unwatched, unedited, unshared. We made Magisto to give people a way to take their videos and turn them into movies that are fun to watch and easy to share."

Additionally, Magisto has secured a $5.5M Series B round of funding led by Horizons Ventures, a Hong Kong-based investment manager looking after the private investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing and the Li Ka-shing Foundation in the TMT sector globally. Magma Venture Partners also participated in this round, having previously led the Series A Round in 2010.

"Do-it-yourself video editing is dead. Magisto is an entirely different video editing experience that delivers great quality video editing that has never been seen before," said Frank Meehan, Magisto Board Member for Horizons Ventures. "Magisto is the first company to actually make this automated editing work and bring it to market in an easy to use web service. The potential for this technology is significant, especially given the tremendous growth of video capable devices in recent years."

The Technology that Powers Magisto

Magisto uses revolutionary new technology that understands every aspect of video footage. More than just facial recognition, Magisto knows the difference between people, pets and landscapes and can even infer the "intent" of the filmmaker by analyzing the sounds and images on the video. Magisto's sophisticated technology and unparalleled understanding of video footage make the automated editing service seem like Magic to its users.

Magisto is free to users and can be found at http://www.magisto.com/. Users can select up to 16 video clips to upload, pick a title, choose their music and with a simple click-of-a-button, turn them into a high-quality movie ready to share.

Useful Links

Magisto Website: http://www.magisto.com
Magisto Twitter: @magisto_says
Magisto Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Magisto
Horizon Ventures Website: http://www.horizonvc.com
Magma Venture Partners Website: http://www.magmavc.com

About Magisto

Founded in 2010, Magisto is the only high quality automated video editing solution on the market. Magisto's mission is to change the video-editing paradigm by making video editing as easy as possible by doing the editing for you using state-of-the-art technology. The company is based in Israel and funded by Horizons Ventures and Magma Venture Partners.

For more information, visit http://www.magisto.com

SOURCE Magisto