Google just bought a startup that takes the pain out of editing videos

Despite an overall slowdown in acquisitions, Google has acquired the team behind Fly Labs, a New York startup that makes video editing apps.

Fly Labs had produced a quartet of video editing apps to help people "edit on the fly." One of the apps, Crop, turned vertical cell phone videos into horizontal, YouTube-friendly ones. Its newest release, Clips, turned small video fragments into so-called masterpiece short films.

In the Fly Lab's announcement, the startup said more than 20 million videos had been created through its product.

The Google acquisition came after the company reported its lowest deal activity, by value, in six years. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and the New York-based startup had reportedly raised $750,000.

The Fly Labs technology will be incorporated into Google's already robust photos app.

Here's Fly Labs full statement:

We're excited to announce that Fly Labs has been acquired by Google!

Our mission at Fly Labs has always been simple: to help people make the most of their photos and videos. We make video editing apps because we believe that there's no better way to stay connected with your memories than by engaging with them creatively. In the last 18 months, our video editing apps have been downloaded more than 3 million times in over 150 different countries. More than 20 million videos have been created with apps made by Fly Labs.

We're excited to continue on our mission by joining Google and the Google Photos team in Mountain View, California. Google Photos is a home for your life's memories, powered by Google's machine learning and computer vision technology. It's a perfect match for what we built at Fly Labs, and we're looking forward to folding our technology into Google Photos. We'll be pouring the same passion into Google Photos that we poured into Clips, Fly, Tempo and Crop on the Fly.

Meanwhile, as of today, all Fly Labs apps are completely free with no in-app purchases! The apps will be available on the App Store for another 3 months - so you can still download them and use them to get creative with video - but please note that we will not be submitting any more updates to the apps. Once the apps are removed from the App Store you will still be able to use them, but they will no longer be available for download.

We'd like to thank our users, our beta testers, our investors, our friends, our families, and everybody who helped us get this far. Onwards and upwards!

Love,
The Fly Labs Team