Australian all-in-one design platform Canva has revealed its acquisition of AI startup Leonardo.AI for an undisclosed amount. As one of Australia’s fastest-growing startups, the latter is a generative AI content and research company. It empowers millions of people to bring their ideas to life through production-quality images and videos.
This announcement follows Canva’s acquisition of UK-based Affinity earlier this year.
Why Leonard.AI?
As AI continues to shape the future of work and visual communication, the acquisition will accelerate Canva’s investment in continued research and development. It also also bring Leonardo’s foundational model to Canva’s community worldwide.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Leonardo.AI to Canva – two Australian companies joining forces to bring world-first breakthroughs in AI and creativity,” said Cameron Adams, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Canva. “This field is constantly evolving, and Leonardo’s technical leadership and community impact can’t be overstated. Bringing our worlds together will accelerate each of our teams’ work, taking us from strength to strength, and we can’t wait to get started.”
What does Leonardo do?
Founded in December 2022 by JJ Fiasson, Chris Gillis, Jachin Bhasme, Peter Runham, and Ethan Smith, the Sydney-based startup initially focused on hyper-realistic image generation for the gaming industry. Its model empowers millions of people to turn ideas into production-quality visual assets with unprecedented control, speed and style consistency. Creators can generate images in any chosen aesthetic in seconds with simple prompts, create videos, sketch with AI, and custom-train models with their own datasets.
Leonardo’s new foundational model, Phoenix, takes creator control to the next level, with unprecedented prompt adherence, coherent, accurate text in images and the ability to generate production-ready assets in one shot.
Leonardo.AI has amassed more than 19 million registered users and is used across a wide variety of industries including advertising, marketing, design, entertainment, architecture, fashion, e-commerce and education. With the acquisition, it will grow its userbase further.
“Today marks the start of a new chapter which will accelerate the pace we innovate at Leonardo.Ai,” said JJ Fiasson, Founder and CEO, Leonardo.AI. Joining the Canva family means we can invest more deeply in scaling our AI research efforts globally, and move even faster to deliver new features and functionality to creatives worldwide.”
What’s next?
Canva will continue to invest in Leonardo’s standalone platform while integrating its technology throughout the company’s suite of Magic Studio products. Working with Leonardo’s team of 120 high-caliber researchers, engineers, and designers will also bolster Canva’s research and development capabilities as the company continues to invest in long-term innovation opportunities.
