Online design platform Canva has announced its acquisition of Affinity’s suite of creative software in a bid to empower all types of designers and capture a greater share of the graphic design software market. The acquisition of Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher places Canva in direct competition with Adobe, as these applications share many features with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.
Canva asserts that this partnership “caters to the full spectrum of designers at every level and stage of the design journey.” Canva, which claims to enable over 175 million people in design, believes this move will offer professional designers affordable access to necessary tools minus the usual complexity associated with traditional design software.
With the acquisition, the 90-person team from Affinity will join a host of other European firms that have been integrated into Canva, such as Flourish, Kaleido, SmartMockups, Pexels, Pixabay, and SlidesCarnival.
The CEO of Affinity, Ashley Hewson, stated that the partnership aligns with their mission to equip creatives with the necessary tools to realize their full potential and foster a community that supports innovation and artistic expression.
Affinity’s creative suite, which is available across Windows, Mac, and iPad, includes Affinity Designer for vector graphics, Affinity Photo for comprehensive photo editing, and Affinity Publisher for creating stunning layouts for publication by combining images, graphics, and text.
In the face of mounting competition, Adobe is answering back with the launch of Firefly Services, a collection of more than 20 new generative and creative APIs, tools, and services. Firefly Services will grant enterprise developers access to the AI-powered features found in Creative Cloud tools, like Photoshop. This will enable them to speed up content creation in custom workflows and develop entirely new solutions.
In addition, Adobe has introduced Custom Models, which will allow businesses to refine Firefly models based on their own assets. In a notable move last year, Adobe signed a definitive merger agreement in September 2022 to acquire Figma, aiming to expand its services.
However, Adobe abruptly canceled this $20 billion bid to acquire Figma in December 2023.
