Canva acquires the Affinity tools
Online design and social media graphics platform Canva has acquired Serif, developer of the Affinity tools – Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher – for a reported $380 million.
All of the existing Affinity staff will be retained, and the firms have pledged to retain “fair pricing” and perpetual licenses of the software.
A range of professional design tools seen as the key alternatives to Adobe products
Although Serif had been developing graphics software – primarily desktop publishing and and consumer image editing tools – since 1987, it began to catch the attention of professional artists in 2014 with the release of vector design tool Affinity Designer.
Considered by many users to be a serious alternative to Adobe Illustrator, Designer also won converts among Adobe users disaffected by the company’s then-recent decision the move to a subscription-only licensing model.
It was followed by two other Adobe competitors, image-editing software Affinity Photo, seen as an alternative to Photoshop, and layout tool Affinity Designer, seen as an alternative to InDesign.
Three years after the release of Affinity Designer, Serif discontinued its other products, and began to focus exclusively on developing its new professional applications.
Now owned by online design and social media graphics platform Canva
The acqusition seems to have come out of the blue not only for users, but for Serif itself.
According to its online FAQs about the acquisition, “selling Serif was not on our minds at all … when Canva contacted us … a couple of months ago”.
Announcing the acquisition, CEO Ashley Hewson described Canva as “a kindred spirit who can help us take Affinity to new levels. Their extra resources will mean we can deliver much more, much faster”.
All of the existing Affinity staff are expected to move to Canva, and there is “every chance” there will be “some expansion” of the team in future.
In particular, the acquisition is expected to accelerate the rollout of “highly requested features such as variable font support, blend and width tools [and] auto object selection”.
The two firms also plan to integrate their tools, commenting that “it’s likely there will be some integration between Affinity and Canva in the future, particularly [for] enterprise customers”.
‘Committed to offering perpetual licenses’ of the Affinity products
For users who had been drawn to the Affinity products by the lack of a subscription model – something promoted prominently on the product website – the acquisition of their developer by a firm whose commercial services are only available via subscription caused consternation.
Canva and Serif have responded by publishing a set of four pledges to users, including one to retain perpetual licenses of the Affinity products.
In it, the firms state: “We are committed to continue to offer perpetual licenses in the future. If we do offer a subscription, it will only ever be as an option alongside the perpetual model.”
The companies also pledge to make Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher available to schools and non-profit organizations for free.
No other changes are expected, with Affinity users continuing to receive software updates through their existing accounts.
Read the official announcement that Canva has acquired the Affinity tools
Read Serif and Canva’s four pledges to Affinity users
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