- Canva, the Australian design giant, acquires Affinity suite, its largest deal yet, enhancing its offerings and challenging industry leaders like Adobe.
- Integrating Affinity’s versatile tools into Canva’s platform strengthens its position in Europe and underscores its commitment to growth and innovation.
- With a valuation of $26 billion and a series of strategic acquisitions, Canva garners attention from investors as a potential IPO candidate, signalling confidence in its market growth trajectory.
Canva, a well-known design unicorn from Australia, has made its largest acquisition to date by purchasing the popular Affinity suite of creative apps. Reports from Bloomberg estimate the deal’s value at “several hundred million British pounds.” The exact financial terms have not been disclosed.
This strategic move involves integrating Serif, the Nottingham-based company behind the Affinity suite, and its entire 90-person team into Canva. The Affinity apps, which are known for their versatility across platforms such as Windows, Mac, and iPad, will now complement Canva’s existing AI-powered tools as the Australian company expands its range of online workspaces.
Canva aims to enhance its offerings and provide users with more comprehensive design solutions by absorbing Serif’s expertise and technology. The acquisition underscores Canva’s commitment to continuous growth and innovation in the design industry, positioning itself as a global leader in online design platforms.
The Affinity creative suite comprises three powerful applications that have garnered a loyal following among professionals. Affinity Designer leads the pack, serving as a vector graphics editor favoured by illustrators, designers, and game developers. Its capabilities extend to creating digital illustrations, concept art, logos, and web mock-ups.
Following closely is Affinity Photo, a photo editor that competes with industry leaders, providing a comprehensive toolkit for basic editing, advanced retouching, and multilayer photo compositions.
Lastly, Affinity Publisher rounds out the suite, offering a next-generation page layout software that simplifies the creation of publications such as books, magazines, marketing materials, and website mock-ups. Each application in the Affinity suite caters to the diverse needs of creative professionals, empowering them with intuitive tools and robust features to bring their visions to life.
Canva, founded just over a decade ago, recently achieved a significant milestone with its acquisition. This move is viewed as a strategic step toward challenging Adobe, a longstanding leader in the creative software industry. Despite Adobe’s recent efforts to integrate AI features into its products, its shares suffered a setback after the collapse of its $20 billion acquisition of Figma last December.
Valued at an impressive $26 billion in its latest share sale, Canva has garnered attention from investors as a potential candidate for an initial public offering (IPO). However, the company has yet to confirm any plans in that regard.
The acquisition is part of Canva’s larger strategy to expand its presence in Europe. The company has already acquired seven European companies, including Kaleido.ai, a visual AI startup, and image providers Pexels and Pixabay. This strategic expansion underscores Canva’s commitment to growth and innovation in the competitive creative software market.
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Last Updated on March 27, 2024 by Safiya K
