- Canva, an online design platform, has announced the acquisition of the Affinity suite of creative software to "empower every type of designer" and strengthen its position in the graphic design software market.
- With the addition of Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher to its portfolio, the design platform will now compete directly with Adobe. These applications share many features with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign.
- Canva stated that this collaboration "unlocks the full spectrum of designers at every level and stage of the design journey."
Canva claims to empower over 175 million people in the design space, and this development will provide professional designers with affordable access to all necessary tools without the complexity typically associated with traditional design software.
The design platform added that Affinity will be a 90-person team, joining a slew of other European companies such as Flourish, Kaleido, SmartMockups, Pexels, Pixabay, and SlidesCarnival that have joined Canva.
Affinity's CEO, Ashley Hewson, stated that this collaboration will help the company's mission of providing creatives with the tools they need to reach their full potential and foster a community that values innovation and artistic expression.
Available across Windows, Mac, and iPad, Affinity’s creative suite includes Affinity Designer for vector-based graphics, Affinity Photo as a comprehensive photo editing tool, and Affinity Publisher, an application designed to combine images, graphics, and text to make beautiful layouts ready for publication.
Meanwhile, Adobe has joined the competition by launching Firefly Services, a set of over 20 new generative and creative APIs, tools, and services, today.
These services will provide enterprise developers access to some of the company's AI-powered features in Creative Cloud tools such as Photoshop, allowing them to accelerate content creation in custom workflows or create entirely new solutions.
It also added Custom Models, allowing businesses to refine Firefly models based on their assets.
In September 2022, Adobe signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma to expand its services. However, in December 2023, it cancelled its $20 billion bid to acquire Figma.
