Canva Inc. has made its largest acquisition yet by acquiring the Affinity suite of creative software, which is popular among Mac users. The deal is worth “several hundred million pounds” and is a combination of cash and stock. Canva, valued at $26 billion in its latest share sale, hopes to compete with Adobe Inc. by purchasing Affinity.
Serif, the startup responsible for Affinity’s portfolio of photo-editing, publishing, and illustration software, is joining Canva, along with its entire 90-person team based in Nottingham, UK. Affinity’s apps have been featured in Apple Inc.’s presentations of creative products and will complement Canva’s selection of artificial intelligence-powered tools as the Australian firm expands its offering of online workspaces. Canva, founded about a decade ago, is now the most capable competitor to Adobe, which has added AI features throughout its products recently. Investors have long viewed Canva as a candidate to go public, and it recently completed a $1.5 billion secondary share sale.
Canva has surpassed $2.1 billion in annualized revenue and has over 175 million users. It has added over 90 million new users over the past 18 months, helped by new AI features. The Australian upstart has acquired a total of seven companies in Europe, including visual AI startup Kaleido.ai and image providers Pexels and Pixabay. Canva’s European headquarters are located in London, and it intends to double down on organic growth in Europe.
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