Canva Acquires Serif's Affinity Apps

[MacRumors]

Canva has acquired Serif's Affinity suite of creative apps, marking a significant stride in its competition against Adobe with a deal valued at several hundred million dollars (via Bloomberg).

Canva is an Australian online design company valued at $26 billion. Its platform offers user-friendly design tools aimed at non-professionals and has a user base of over 175 million people worldwide. The acquisition of the Affinity apps marks a change of strategy for Canva, targeting professional designers and creatives who have traditionally relied on Adobe's suite of products.

Affinity's software, encompassing photo editing, vector illustration, and desktop publishing tools, has been been lauded for its performance, affordability, and one-time purchase model – a stark contrast to Adobe's subscription services. The apps have garnered a strong following among Mac users in particular.

The acquisition includes the transition of Serif's 90-person team to Canva, ensuring continuity in the development and support of Affinity apps. Cliff Obrecht, Canva's co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, emphasized that Affinity's portfolio is the "final piece in our jigsaw," indicating how the apps are expected to complement Canva's existing array of AI-powered design solutions and collaborative online workspaces.

Article Link: Canva Acquires Serif's Affinity Apps

 

[appleguy123]

Probably goodbye to one time purchase then.

 

[jonnysods]

Oh please don't degrade the quality of these apps - they are so good, I use them every day.

 

[hovscorpion12]

I’m confused. Did they purchase Affinity or the Affinity Suite? As in Affinity Photo 2 is now owned by Canva?

 

[MVMNT]

30% off at the moment too... wonder how that's going to work out for new customers.

 

[stiligFox]

Noooooo


EDIT: I reckon it could be worse. Canva is an Australian, private company that’s been around since 2013 - at least it’s not some Wallstreet bound flash-in-the-pan AI company that’s public and it’s only role is to make more money for it’s investors.

 

[Apple$]

Better than being bought by Adobe.

 

[CalMin]

Get em while you can boys and girls. It’ll be subscriptions from here on in.

 

[spillled typos]

Probably goodbye to one time purchase then.

At least we'll still have the previously one-time-purchased copies.

 

[madmin]

Sad to hear, they did things in a good way. That said I'm not that surprised since I thought they didn't do the upgrade from v1 to v2 quite right and may not have got enough from that operation.

 

[Pandyone]

Subscriptions are probably coming, and soon be required, for Affinity then.

 

[HouseLannister]

Better than being bought by Adobe.

Maybe Adobe uses this as leverage to go back to acquiring Figma?

 

[TechZeke]

Probably goodbye to one time purchase then.

Hope not. As a casual user, it's nice to have a genuine Photoshop competitor that doesn't require a subscription.

 

[LunarPenguin]

Incredibly sad to see. I guess I should head over to Gimp. Took a chance and went all in with Affinity a few years ago, should have known not to trust paid software.

 

[widestload]

if they turn to subscriptions, then nope.. bye bye. If however they come up with a one time payment real competitor to Lightroom (iPad version), then that would be amazing! So keen to drop that last Adobe sub.

 

[spazzcat]

Probably goodbye to one time purchase then.

I'm hoping non-profits keep getting some licenses for free. We use it all the time.

 

[Analog Kid]

I'll add my voice to the chorus worried this will mean the end of an affordable, high quality, tool chain.

Of course, this could also be the best way of sustaining it.

Please, keep Affinity Photo what it is.

 

[Wordwise]

I’m confused. Did they purchase Affinity or the Affinity Suite? As in Affinity Photo 2 is now owned by Canva?

They bought Serif, the parent company for all Affinity products.

 

[sfwalter]

Subscriptions are probably coming, and soon be required, for Affinity then.

Yep. 3.0 will probably move to a subscription model. Very sad. I use their design tools (Designer and Publisher) for personal projects and couldn't justify an annual subscription. I love the Affinity suite because they aren't a subscription model.

 

[boswald]

I really hope there’s no subscriptions. I’m sick to death of them.

 

[RHutch]

Incredibly sad to see. I guess I should head over to Gimp. Took a chance and went all in with Affinity a few years ago, should have known not to trust paid software.

What exactly makes this incredibly sad to see? You must have read something in the article that I didn’t see, or just jumped to conclusions that are not in this article.

 

[zweigand]

This was definitely not on my radar. The trend for design has been moving more and more stuff towards a server solution, not back to desktop. All of Adobe's recent efforts seem to be pointed in that direction. Seems weird for Canva to grab "old style" tech, eh?

 

[ThankYouRob]

Probably goodbye to one time purchase then.

That is the biggest reason I'm sure most of us went with Affinity vs Adobe. I'd hope they'd grandfather us existing users in, if they went to a subscription model. Otherwise, that'll be the end of Affinity (Canva) for me...not sure where I'll go.....

 

[Wando64]

Incredibly sad to see. I guess I should head over to Gimp. Took a chance and went all in with Affinity a few years ago, should have known not to trust paid software.

I’ve just checked and my Affinity software is still working as it did yesterday, whereas Gimp is still buggy as hell.

 

[arkitect]

Not to jump the gun here, but this leaves me feeling uneasy.

I have put up with the areas where Affinity's suite lacks when compared with Adobe because, well, no subscription!

If this goes to subscription then why would I stay?

I'd probably switch back to Adobe… I mean hell… my fingers still have the muscle memory of 3 decades worth of use.

Not happy.