Video generation and editing platform D-ID said Tuesday that it has acquired Berlin-based B2B video creation platform Simpleshow. The companies didn’t disclose financial terms of the deal.
Simpleshow’s product will operate under D-ID’s umbrella, and eventually the two platforms will merge, D-ID chief executive Gil Perry told TechCrunch.
Simpleshow, founded in 2008, has raised over $20 million in funding, according to Crunchbase data.
The startup has offices in Berlin, Luxembourg, London, Miami, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. As part of the merger, the company will have consolidated offices in Berlin, Tel Aviv, and the United States. D-ID didn’t mention Simpleshow’s team size but said that the combined entity will have 140 employees.
“Simpleshow initially approached us for a strategic partnership. We saw that there was synergy between management teams and products,” said Perry. “We felt that we needed to increase our speed in capturing a large [part of the enterprise avatar video] market. We thought acquiring Simpleshow would give us the necessary boost in that.”
Both companies are seeing a strong future of digital avatars for different kinds of videos, including training, marketing, and sales. D-ID already has a suite of AI-powered interactive avatars that it offers to its clients.
Simpleshow’s CEO Karsten Boehrs said that when he joined the company over a decade ago, it was largely an agency producing videos for businesses and enterprises.
“To achieve scale and serve more clients internationally, we decided to build a SaaS-based tech platform,” Boehrs told TechCrunch. “One of the first tools we launched was a text-to-video tool for our clients in 2017.”
Boehrs added that in the last few years, with the rise of AI, it started conversations with companies like Synthesia for potential partnerships and eventually landed on D-ID to get acquired.
Alongside its product, Simpleshow is also bringing more than 1,500 enterprise clients, including Adobe, Audio, Airbus, Microsoft, Bayer, HP, T-Mobile, McDonald’s, eBay, and Deutsche Bank. D-ID’s Perry mentioned that this will boost the company’s bottom line and bring it closer to profitability.
Going forward, D-ID wants to build interactive training videos, which will let users interrupt a video presented by an avatar and ask them a question or take a quiz.
D-ID has strong competition for enterprise adoption of digital avatars in companies like Synthesia and Soul Machines. Companies such as Google and McKinsey are also developing solutions to let clients use digital avatars.
D-ID has raised $60 million in funding to date. The company said it has secured funding to bankroll the acquisition, but it didn’t disclose the money.
