Canva strikes biggest acquisition yet in chase to take on Adobe
Canva Inc. acquired the Affinity suite of creative software popular with Mac users, securing its biggest acquisition to date in an effort to compete with Adobe Inc.
The deal, which is a mix of cash and stock, is valued at “several hundred million pounds,” Canva cofounder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday. It’s the biggest outlay yet by Australia’s most valuable startup, priced at $26 billion in its latest share sale, and marks a milestone in the expansion of its range of professional tools.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIM KozhikodeIIMK Advanced Data Science For ManagersVisitMITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisitIIT DelhiIITD Certificate Programme in Data Science & Machine LearningVisitJoining Canva is the entire 90-person team of Nottingham, UK-based Serif, the startup responsible for Affinity’s portfolio of photo-editing, publishing and illustration software. Affinity’s apps have been featured in Apple Inc.’s presentations of creative products and are the “final piece in our jigsaw,” Obrecht said. They will now be used to complement Canva’s selection of artificial intelligence-powered tools as the Australian firm bolsters its offering of online workspaces.
Founded about a decade ago, Canva has grown into the most capable competitor to Adobe, the longtime dominant provider of software for graphics professionals. Adobe has added AI features throughout its products recently, but its shares have
