(Yicai Global) Oct. 30 -- Chinese video platforms are actively focusing on their positioning in the editing software and tools market to ensure they do not lag behind their peers in competition for the content market.

Chinese developer of video-editing apps Versa concluded funding in which it secured tens of millions of dollars that was led by New York-listed Chinese video platform Bilibili, Versa announced earlier this week, while declaring the launch of its ‘Bugu Editing’ app, which is tailored to edit and produce short videos and mainly serves Bilibili content uploaders.

Almost all [short] video platforms are equipping themselves with supporting editing tools suitable for creating their content, e.g. Douyin and Kuaishou respectively own Jianying and Kuaiying, and Douyin’s parent Beijing ByteDance Technology even specially debuted the overseas version of Jianying, Viamaker, exclusively for foreign users. Tencent Holdings’ instant-messaging app WeChat’s video-editing tool is Miaojian, while iQiyi, the video service provider backed by China’s search engine giant Baidu, launched its Suikechuangzuo [‘create-on-the-fly’] app.

“Bugu Editing is of the same significance to Bilibili as Jianying is to short video app Douyin [the Chinese alter ego of TikTok],” said Cai Tianyi, chief executive of Versa, to Yicai Global, adding, “We will directly rival Jianying and outperform it.”

Content creators can produce their videos more conveniently and efficiently with the help of editing software and upload it at the click of a button, so as to form a content-based ecological cycle that bonds tools and platforms to one another.

Across Platforms

Many videos on Bilibili are produced with Jianying and many production methods of Douyin’s videos are also applied on the Shanghai-based video-streaming platform’s signature scrolling bullet comments.

Bilibili’s user preferences and in-community ecology, however, differ from Douyin’s, according to Cai, who said Bilibili is calling for an editing tool that responds more to the platform’s internal logics and origin to directly compete in the market.

The emerging short-video market has triggered savage competition among editing tools. The hundreds of video-editing apps now available on iOS system’s app store share similar functions.

“Most of editing apps on the market are Jianying clones, whereas editing software must feature exclusive functions that work if it intends to outdo peers … and this is actually a test targeting the product’s computing and engineering capabilities,” Cai further explained.

Bugu Editing plans to recoup its costs and turn a profit by making the product’s major service free but charging users for its value-added ones, Cai stated, adding it will also gain on the business end by granting technology license to Bilibili and Tencent Video.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Ben Armour