Lightricks Lays Off 70 Employees to Shift Focus to AI-Based Tools and Features

In a strategic move to align with the rapidly evolving AI landscape, Jerusalem-based software company Lightricks has announced a significant organizational restructuring.

The company will lay off 70 employees, accounting for 12% of its workforce, to focus on developing and marketing generative AI-based features and tools. Known for popular consumer applications like Facetune and Videoleap, Lightricks is shifting its resources towards AI video production and filmmaking solutions.

This transition, despite its immediate challenges, is aimed at positioning Lightricks at the forefront of AI innovation in the long term.

Explore how this change will shape the future of Lightricks and its impact on the AI industry.

Facetune Development

Lightricks was founded in 2013 The company created a batch of consumer-level photo- and video-editing tools used extensively by content producers active in the Instagram social network. Its applications are Facetune, Facetune Video, and Videoleap; the company is reported to have more than 730 million downloads and over 6. 6 million monthly subscribers.

Lightricks said it will “continue to develop the Facetune application and will work to promote and deepen the integration of AI capabilities into the apps.” 

However, after new technologies appeared and AI was evolving so quickly, Lightricks started to work on new applications of its software, related to AI video production and filmmaking.

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Earlier in February, the company released LTX Studio, a generative AI editing apparatus for video production and filmmaking. Originally designed for cinema and commercial videographers and advertising and marketing agencies, the straightforward web-based solution is aimed at saving the time of film directors, screenwriters, and any person who needs to not only write a story or an advertisement script but also draw it and edit a video in one place.

Lightricks stated, “This is part of an organizational change to direct most of resources to the development and marketing of generative AI-based B2B products. The company plans to hire dozens of new AI experts, with a main emphasis on recruiting employees in Israel.”

So far, Lightricks has received investments of up to $335 million from investors, including Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Insight Partners, Greycroft, ClalTech, and Viola Ventures. In its last funding round in 2021, the firm raised $130 million at a company valuation of $1. 8 billion.

Lightricks has recently begun one round of ‘rationalisation’, which means offices have had to cut their staff to achieve more than-anticipated DD-suited commercial focus on their new AI tools for video creation and filmmaking. Even if some of the organization’s workers are going to suffer from the change, the transition to utilizing AI tools might benefit the company in the long run because of the fast-paced technological advancements in the contemporary world.

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