May 15, 2008 12:53 PM PDT

Amazon invests in Animoto

Posted by Elinor Mills

Amazon has invested an undisclosed amount in Animoto, a site that enables people to easily create videos from their photos and music.

(Credit: Animoto)

This is the first big investor for Animoto. Previous funding has come from friends and family.

Animoto.com, which launched in August, has more than 160,000 registered users, with 7.5 percent of them paying a $30 annual fee to be able to create longer videos. The company also has a Facebook application, which launched in March and has more than 750,000 users.

The Amazon funding doesn't exactly come as a surprise given the links the companies have. Animoto uses Amazon's Web Services and was a featured presenter at an Amazon event in September advertising its services.

And last month, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos talked about Animoto during a presentation at Y Combinator's Startup School at Stanford University.

Animoto says it will use the money to hire people in its New York City and San Francisco offices, establish a video creation platform, develop new products and continue innovating in the area of "cinematic artificial intelligence."

"We also plan to upgrade our fridge from PBR to Coors Light," the company said on its blog. "Life is good."

Yes, it is.