In a bold move to increase competition with Adobe, Canva has made a major acquisition where it has purchased the Affinity suite of creative software. Affinity has some great alternatives to Adobe's suite of products and is also quite popular among Mac users. Canva's co-founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht, disclosed to Bloomberg that the deal is a combination of cash and stock, and is valued at "several hundred million pounds".
Affinity is known for its robust portfolio in photo-editing, publishing, and illustration software. The acquisition will transfer Affinity's 90-person team over to Canva. Affinity's apps have also been featured in Apple's presentation of creative products.
Canva, which was founded around a decade ago, has emerged as a formidable competitor to Adobe, offering a suite of user-friendly design tools aimed at non-professionals, yet powerful enough for professional use. The Australian startup has over 175 million users and $2.1 billion in annualized revenue out of which it added 90 million new users in just the past 18 months, thanks to new AI powered features.
Obrecht said that the company is still looking to "double down on that organic growth" in a market that has high potential and opportunity. Canva set up its European headquarters in London last year and acquired a bunch of companies in Europe including AI startup Kaleido.ai and image providers Pexels and Pixabay.
Adobe, on the other hand, has also added new AI features in its suite although its shares have tumbled down by more than 15% this year after the $20 billion Figma acquisition deal fell apart. Adobe has been a market leader at providing software for media and graphic professionals for a long time and remains in a dominant position despite Canva's attempts at competition.
Canva has remained silent on any prospects of an IPO, contrary to investors. Obrecht, however, added that the firm recently raised $1.5 billion through a secondary share sale.
Source: Business Wire via Bloomberg (paywall)
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