Canva, the Australian design platform known for its friendly and easy use interface, has made a significant stride in its quest to challenge Adobe’s digital design dominance with the acquisition of UK-based Affinity.
This strategic move marks Canva’s ambition to expand its offerings into the professional design realm. Affinity’s suite of professional design software, including Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher, complements Canva’s existing tools, enabling the creation of a comprehensive suite of visual communication solutions.
With over 175 million users worldwide, Canva sees this acquisition as a strategic move to enhance its B2B offerings and cater to the rising demand for visual content creation in the workplace.
Both Canva and Affinity are excited about the collaboration and the potential to innovate together in empowering creatives worldwide.
“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,” said Canva co-founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht.
“Since the inception of Affinity, our mission has been to empower creatives with tools that unleash their full potential, fostering a community where innovation and artistry flourish,” said Ashley Hewson, CEO of Affinity.
“We’ve worked tirelessly to challenge the status quo, delivering professional-grade creative software that is both accessible and affordable.” he added
Founded in 1987 with a focus on crafting applications for Windows systems, Affinity gradually expanded its suite of offerings over two decades. However, as technology evolved, so did the challenges confronting the company’s legacy applications.
One of the glaring issues plaguing Affinity’s earlier offerings was their confinement to Windows platforms. This limitation not only hindered their accessibility but also underscored a failure to adapt to the increasingly diverse landscape of computing environments.
Over time, these applications became burdened by bloat, making them unwieldy and cumbersome to maintain. The core foundation of Affinity’s software seemed ill-equipped to keep pace with the rapid advancements in hardware, further exacerbating its struggles to remain relevant in an ever-changing industry.
In response to these challenges, Affinity made the bold decision to undergo a complete overhaul, effectively scrapping its old code and embarking on the development of a new suite of applications designed to cater to creative professionals across Mac, Windows, and iPad platforms.
Canva was founded by a trio of enterprising individuals — Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams — in a small apartment in Sydney, Australia, back in 2007. Melanie Perkins, was teaching design programs at a local university. Struck by the complexity of traditional design software and the challenges her students faced, Perkins realized the need for a more intuitive and user-friendly solution. This realization would pave the way for the birth of Canva.
