Canva acquires Affinity, a popular alternative to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

Online design platform

https://www.canva.com/newsroom/news/affinity/

Canva Acquires Affinity Design Adding AI Tools to Portfolio as It Rivals Adobe - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-26/canva-acquires-affinity-design-suite-in-push-to-rival-adobe

Canva is a service that allows you to create various designs on a web browser, and its selling point is that anyone can easily create banners and images for social media. In 2023, it will also be equipped with an AI-based image generation function to increase the number of users, and Canva's annual revenue in 2023 will exceed $2.1 billion (approximately 320 billion yen), and as of January 2024, it has approximately 170 million monthly active users.

Affinity is a paid creative suite consisting of the design tool 'Affinity Designer,' the photo editing tool 'Affinity Photo,' and the DTP tool 'Affinity Publisher,' and is available for Windows, Mac, and iPad. Affinity is known as an alternative to Adobe's Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, respectively, and is particularly popular because it is a one-time purchase type, unlike Adobe's monthly subscription type.

Canva is a service aimed at people without a formal design education and has never really developed a professional offering, so acquiring Affinity makes sense as a way to attract new customers.

Canva commented: 'For the last decade, Canva has focused on the 99% of knowledge workers who have no design training, but to truly empower the world with design, we need to empower professional designers as well. We're thrilled to partner with Affinity to unleash the power of designers at every level and stage of design.'

In an interview , Canva co-founder Cameron Adams said, 'Our product teams are already in conversations and there are some plans for some integration, but we envision the products will always remain separate,' revealing that the Affinity application will remain a separate product from Canva.

The purchase price has not been disclosed, but Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht told Bloomberg in an interview that the deal is a combination of cash and stock and is worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Continued
Adobe's rival design suite Affinity announces four pledges, permanent license purchase model will be maintained even after acquisition - GIGAZINE

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