Wibbitz builds an AI platform that automatically creates short videos from text news stories. Its technology is designed to supplement publishers' existing video teams by producing large quantities of low-cost videos while humans focus on higher-end work. The company aims to make its videos indistinguishable from human-created content and says publishers are increasingly open to AI for content creation. Wibbitz began a major push into the U.S. two years ago and has added partners including Bloomberg, Cox Media Group and The Weather Channel. It has raised a total of $30.8M to date, and the latest funding is earmarked to hire across the board, expand globally and improve its AI and automation. Co-founder and CEO Zohar Dayan framed the new round as a testament to the value the technology brings to large media companies. Wibbitz provides publishers with a text-to-video platform designed to increase video inventory and monetize their content with pre-roll ad space. Founded in 2011 by CEO Zohar Dayan, the company is based in Tel Aviv and New York City and maintains R&D and engineering teams in Israel. Wibbitz is launching a B2B platform and developing new features to expand its publisher services. It has invested in a comprehensive Control-Room solution that gives publishers editorial control over branding, visual components and the option for human voiceover. The company plans to expand into the U.S. market and will grow its business development, sales, marketing and editorial teams, aiming to hire about 20 new employees. Financially, Wibbitz raised $8m in a Series B round to fund these expansion and product efforts. Wibbitz provides a text-to-video service that converts article text into shareable HTML5 video summaries using images from its library or public Creative Commons image banks. Publishers implement Wibbitz with a single line of JavaScript and viewers can share videos to Facebook and Twitter or embed them elsewhere. The company has introduced a one-click video-creation solution and says it has improved its algorithms and player since launch. Wibbitz reports that more than 20,000 sites have generated videos (up from 1,600 in a private beta). The service supports monetization through pre-roll advertising, and the company says traction and ad performance are growing but declined to provide specific metrics. With new funding, Wibbitz plans to commercialize the technology further, expand R&D in Israel, and open offices in NYC; it is developing a premium publisher solution for scalable video creation. Wibbitz provides an automated service that converts an article's text into concise video summaries combining text, images and audio narration. The product is implemented with a single line of JavaScript and pulls images from the publisher's library or Creative Commons sources. The player supports both Flash and a mobile-friendly HTML5 interface and produces videos that can be shared to Facebook, Twitter or embedded elsewhere. Wibbitz was testing a more basic form of the service with about 1,600 sites in private beta and began accepting registrations for the newer player. The company plans a freemium pricing model with larger publishers billed by usage and an option for publishers to monetize via short pre-roll ads. Wibbitz was founded by Zohar Dayan and Yotam Cohen and is based in Tel Aviv.

Total raised

$31M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

Oct 2017