Canva acquires UK’s Affinity
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The news: Canva has acquired UK creative software suite Affinity for an estimated $1 billion as it expands into the professional design market.
The numbers: The acquisition was Canva’s largest yet and was likely to be around $1 billion based on Affinity’s parent company Serif’s financials, the Australian Financial Review reported.
Serif was founded in 1987, developing creative software for Windows and building up a suite of apps over a 20-year period in the UK. In 2014, Serif launched its first Affinity app, Affinity Designer, and its suite now also includes Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Serif has 90 employees based in Nottingham.
Affinity’s suite of creative products are used by more than three million users globally.
Affinity marks Canva’s latest Europe-based acquisitions, joining Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019).
The context: Affinity’s suite of products are used to create projects such as complex multi-layered graphics, detailed technical diagrams, art and illustration, logos, mockups, documents and magazines.
Canva said integrating Affinity would accelerate its enterprise ambitions, increasing its offering of tools for the professional design market.
What they said: Canva co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht said: "Visual communication is now ubiquitous in the workplace and investing in strategies that enhance our B2B offerings is core to the future of our business."
“The Affinity team comes with an incredible calibre of talent and technology and we're delighted to welcome them to Canva as we enter our next phase together.”
The sources: Canva media release, AFR
