Popular free Online visual communications tool Platform, Canva has announced its acquisition of the UK-based company behind the Affinity creative software suite for professional photo editing, illustration, graphic design and page layout.

There is no definitive value for the transaction but Bloomberg estimates give the deal being inclusive of a mix of cash and stock, and squaring the valuation at “several hundred million pounds,”.

Canva is an easy-to-use platform with a drag-and-drop interface and a wide range of templates for creating presentations, documents, websites, social media graphics, posters, apparel, and videos. It also offers a vast library of fonts, stock photography, illustrations, video footage, and audio clips for creating beautiful designs.

Affinity has over 3 million users around the world who have used it for complex multi-layered graphics to detailed technical diagrams, art and illustrations, logos, mockups, documents, magazines and much more.

The Affinity Suite includes Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher which spans cross-platform compatibility across macOS, Windows and iPadOS.

The Suite has even garnered several industry awards, including an Apple Design Award, Apple App of the Year for Mac and iPad and the Microsoft Application Developer of the Year.

Canva affirms that the acquisition is squarely aimed at “significantly bolsters Canva’s vision to build the world’s most comprehensive suite of visual communication tools.”

Canva has been one of the most prolifically used alternatives to some of Adobe’s creative suites. it is been quoted by Canva to be used by over 99% of knowledge workers with design training and already integrates with Affinity’s software suite.

The acquisition therefore not only bolsters Canva’s target audience and the competitive creative tools space but gives Canva a solid User base. Canva’s co-founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht affirm this by saying, “From sales and marketing, to brand and creative teams, the need to create effective and engaging visual content is on the rise. 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.”

This is not Canva’s first acquisition, especially in Europe as it has acquired Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019).

Canva opened its first European HQ in 2023, based in London which will now have an addition of 90 team members with this acquisition.