Videolicious Raises $2.25 Million in Effort to Attract Journalists as Users

Videolicious Raises $2.25 Million in Effort to Attract Journalists as Users

By Ryan Lawler for TechCrunch

Videolicious, which makes an app that allows users to easily create videos from their mobile phones, has been working to get more adoption from businesses. It’s being used for employee training, by real estate agents, and increasingly by news rooms. To spur more of that growth, Videolicious has raised some additional funding to get more journalists using its video app.

The company has raised $2.25 million from investors that include Washington Post Company, Amazon.com, and the Knight Foundation. The round was led by Venture51 and Social Leverage, and includes existing investors such as Joanne Wilson, Trestle Ventures, and Quotidian Ventures. The company has now raised more than $4 million to date.

The funding comes as Videolicious has placed a big bet on getting journalists to sign up and use the app, a bet that seems to be paying off. More than 100 newspapers, magazines, and TV stations have signed up in the last few months, getting their journalists to use the app to quickly create video news reports while out in the field. The Washington Post, for instance, was one of the first news organizations to begin using the app, and now has 30 reporters on the app.

The app provides a simplified workflow for stitching together photos and videos and recording a voiceover on top. That allows reporters — whether they are print journalists, photo journalists, or video journalists — to more quickly and efficiently post videos about breaking news without needing a video crew or editing suite.

That’s one reason Videolicious is being used more often for news. Another reason is that the company recently released some enterprise-style tools to make connecting the app and the videos made on it to existing content management systems. That way, not only are videos being created more quickly, but news organizations can better manage and monetize the additional content that is being created.

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