Canva eyes professional design market with largest buy yet

Affinity CEO Ash Hewson and Canva Head of Europe Duncan Clark | Photo Credit: Business Wire

Canva, the Australia-based graphic design platform, has acquired Affinity, which provides design services catered more to professionals.

The deal was valued at “several hundred million pounds,” according to a Bloomberg report citing Canva COO and co-founder Cliff Obrecht.

Before the acquisition, Canva saw growth among non-professionally trained users who were drawn to the platform’s ease of use.

Integrating Affinity’s software allows Canva to expand its reach to all levels of designers and helps it stand toe to toe with companies like Adobe.

According to data from Statista, Adobe Photoshop leads the graphics software market so far this year with a roughly 42% share. Meanwhile, InDesign – Adobe’s professional design software product – also has double the market share of Canva.

Affinity’s suite has over 3 million users worldwide. Meanwhile, Canva, which is used by over 175 million people, expects the acquisition to enhance its design tool offerings and penetrate the professional design market.

“The Affinity team comes with an incredible caliber of talent and technology and we’re delighted to welcome them to Canva as we enter our next phase together,” he added in a statement.

Over the years, Canva has made moves to branch out of its initial focus on light, but functional editing. In 2022, the firm acquired Flourish, an online tool for designing charts, for an undisclosed sum.

Before that, it had acquired other European companies like Smartmockups and Kaleido in 2021 as well as Pexels and Pixabay in 2019.

Earlier this year, Canva was said to be close to finalizing a share sale by investors, which would raise over US$1.5 billion in proceeds.

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