Canva Inc Plans to Acquire Leonardo.ai to Take on Creative Software Company Adobe

Canva Inc. is acquiring the image generation startup Leonardo.ai, marking its second acquisition this year as it accelerates its push into artificial intelligence to compete with creative software leader Adobe Inc.

The deal, finalized in about a month, allows Canva to integrate Leonardo.ai’s video and image generation models into its own products. 

This acquisition follows Canva’s purchase of the Affinity software suite, popular among Apple Inc. Mac users, for several hundred million pounds.  

With a $26 billion valuation from a recent fundraising round, Canva is one of the fastest-growing creative software developers vying with market leader Adobe. 

The acquisition brings Canva a team of 120 from Leonardo.ai, which specializes in software that helps users generate and edit images online with text prompts.