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Tag: Affinity

  • Canva acquires startups working on animation and marketing | TechCrunch

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    On Monday, creative suite maker Canva announced the dual acquisition of startups Cavalry, which works on animation, and Mango AI, which works on improving ad performance.

    UK-based Cavalry works on 2D motion animation for different verticals such as advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art. Canva said that Cavalry’s tooling will add to the existing capabilities of Affinity, Canva’s professional creative editing suite for photos, vectors, and layouts, which it acquired in 2024

    Canva revamped Affinity’s design last year and made it free for all users. The company said that since then, people have downloaded the software over five million times. Affinity has the capabilities of photos, vector, and layout editing. With this acquisition, Canva wants to add motion editing to its suite.

    “By bringing Cavalry alongside Affinity, we’re closing that [motion editing] gap and unlocking a complete professional suite spanning photo, vector, layout, and now motion editing,” the company said in a blog post. “Together, these tools form the foundation of a full-stack Creative OS for professional work, while preserving the depth and control professional creatives rely on,” it added.

    Besides Cavalry, Canva has also acquired stealth startup MangoAI, which was working on building reinforcement learning systems to improve video ad performance, according to its website. Canva said that the startup’s first product helped clients create and launch ads and observe outcomes to improve future campaigns.

    MangoAI was built by Nirmal Govind, former Vice President of Data Science & Engineering at Netflix, and Vinith Misra, a former data scientist at Netflix and Roblox. Canva said that Govind will become Canva’s first ” Chief Algorithms Officer” and Misra will work on improving Canva’s marketing products.

    In January 2025, Canva acquired marketing intelligence startup Magicbrief and later last year, it launched a growth tool called Canva Grow for asset creation and performance measurement.

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    MangoAI Co-Founders Nirmal Govind (left) and Vinith Misra (right) together with Canva Co-Founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht (centre).Image Credits: Canva

    During a sit-down at Web Summit Qatar earlier this month, Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht told TechCrunch that Canva Grow is doing “incredibly well,” especially when it comes to creating static content and publishing it to Meta platforms.

    “It is quite an early product, but we’ll soon be launching a lot more things around video creation, deploying across multi platform,” Obrecht had said. “So it’s very early, but it’s very much got a very loyal small user base, but a lot of big brands are spending money, and then we’re scaling up massively.”

    With the new acquisitions, the company wants to bolster its position as a marketing solution by potentially adding video creation and more granular measurement. Canva closed 2025 at $4 billion in annualized revenue with more than 265 million users and 31 million paid users.

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    Ivan Mehta

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  • Nine Artists Not to Miss at 1-54 London

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    Hervé Yamguen

    The sculptures of Cameroonian artist Hervé Yamguen embody metamorphosis. First, by transforming material, bending bronze into unique three-dimensional creations, and second, by exploring the realm of human and non-human forms in his works. Several sculptures from his series “Nous sommes nature” (“We are nature”) are whimsical and strange at the same time. In one, a small framed body, presumably of a boy, rests on the ground. From it grows and emerges bird-like animals, figureheads and plants. Another spiral-shaped sculpture emulates a Tower of Babel with vines coiling all around. Here also, mask-like heads poke through, suggesting the presence of spirits and the intertwined nature of being.

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    Farah Abdessamad

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  • Canva acquires design platform Affinity to bring professional design tools to every organization

    Canva acquires design platform Affinity to bring professional design tools to every organization

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    Canva, the world’s only all-in-one visual communication platform, has announced the acquisition of Affinity, an award-winning creative software suite for professional photo editing, illustration, graphic design, and page layout.

    The acquisition significantly bolsters Canva’s vision to build the world’s most comprehensive suite of visual communication tools. While the last decade has seen rapid growth for Canva amongst the 99% of knowledge workers without design training, the integration of Affinity’s professional design software now unlocks the full spectrum of designers at every level and stage of the design journey.

    As visual communication becomes the status quo in teams and organizations around the world, the acquisition also accelerates Canva’s enterprise ambitions, unlocking a future where professional designers can craft designs and templates with Affinity to scale across organizations with Canva.

    “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. “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.” 

    Affinity CEO Ashley Hewson and Canva head of Europe Duncan Clark

    Empowering professional designers

    Affinity stemmed from a vision to empower designers to produce high-quality content in an effective and affordable way. In 10 years, the Affinity suite of creative products has become beloved and renowned for delivering powerful experiences for professional designers. This includes offering extremely fast and highly responsive tools that deliver on all the photo and vector editing tasks required by professionals.

    Today, more than 3 million users around the world trust Affinity to create everything from complex multi-layered graphics to detailed technical diagrams, art and illustration, logos, mockups, documents, magazines, and much more.

    Designed for the latest hardware and packed with features to simplify real-life professional workflows, Affinity’s all-inclusive photo editing, graphic design, and desktop publishing products serve as a powerful, cost-effective, and subscription-free solution for photographers and designers requiring versatility and precision.

    Their core products—Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher—have been lauded for their lightning-fast performance and seamless cross-platform compatibility across macOS, Windows, and iPadOS. To date, Affinity has won several industry awards, including an Apple Design Award, Apple App of the Year for Mac and iPad, and Microsoft Application Developer of the Year.  

    Canva growth surge continues

    Now entering its second decade, Canva has pioneered the model for simple and effective design and is now used by more than 175 million people across 190 countries and in more than 100 languages. As visual communication becomes an imperative for every kind of industry and organization, the last few years have seen Canva make significant strides in this arena, bolstered by the introduction of Canva’s Visual Suite in September 2022.

    Since then, the company has added more than 90 million new users, experiencing nine years’ worth of growth in just 18 months. The acquisition of Affinity will expand Canva’s offering of design tools into the professional design market.

    Canva will continue to invest in the Affinity suite to ensure it not only meets the needs of professional designers but also enhances their experiences and empowers them to do their best work. Together, Canva and Affinity will be a powerhouse combination built to supercharge the goals of every type of designer.

    “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. Canva’s commitment to empowering everyone to create aligns perfectly with those values. We couldn’t be more excited about becoming part of the Canva family and can’t wait to see what we will achieve together.”

    Europe-based acquisitions continue to fuel Canva’s product strategy

    Acquisitions from Europe’s startup ecosystem have elevated Canva’s technology and continue to play an important role in expanding the company’s physical presence in the region. Over the years, Canva has found high-caliber talent and compatible technology in Europe with several acquisitions that have become key to the company’s product strategy. Affinity marks Canva’s latest  Europe-based acquisition, joining  Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019). Canva opened its first European HQ in 2023, based in London.

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    Gadgets Magazine 17

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