India, Aug. 28 -- It was in early 2024 when Canva announced the acquisition of professional creative software suite Affinity. Not the first big acquisition, but perhaps the most consequential one for someone looking in from the outside - Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019) were already part of the Canva family by this point, underlining a strategy of smart acquisitions. A few months later, that summer, Canva used their Create keynote to announce significant updates to what they considered a crucial piece in the jigsaw to create full-stack solution for all designers, including professional graphic designers, illustrators and typographers. Efforts have borne fruit.

Canva tells HT that sinc...