With software solutions such as Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher, Serif offers a powerful and comparatively inexpensive alternative to the Adobe ecosystem around Photoshop and co. As Serif CEO Ashley Hewson has now revealed in a blog post, the company has been taken over by the online graphics platform Canva. However, a switch to a subscription model is not planned, at least not in the near future.
Canva takes over Affinity
A big bang in the creative software industry: Canva, previously known primarily for its free or low-cost online solutions for graphic editing, is taking over the Affinity division of Serif with the tools Photo, Designer and Publisher and wants to position itself even more as a direct competitor to Adobe solutions such as Photoshop.
Affinity products enjoy enormous popularity in the creative industry. Above all, because they are offered at a fixed price without a subscription obligation and cloud connection and are in no way inferior to the more expensive Adobe programs.
Canva, which acquired the free image database Pixabay in 2019, currently has around 175 million monthly users from 190 countries and is characterized above all by its particularly simple design options, which are aimed at those who want to create graphics in just a few steps and without a great deal of know-how.
Together they want to take Affinity to a new level, Hewson said in the statement. “The additional resources [from Canva] mean we can deliver much more in much less time. We can also open up new horizons for Affinity products, opening up a whole world of new possibilities that would never have been possible before,” Hewson continues.
The approximately 90-strong Serif team from the UK will remain in place and continue to operate independently. There will be no redundancies, as Canva confirmed at the beginning of the negotiations.
Takeover in the three-digit million range
Neither company disclosed details of the official takeover price. According to Bloomberg, however, the takeover is expected to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds sterling. A good deal for Serif and the Affinity programs, which have around three million users.
Together, they also want to tap into new target groups and, in combination with Serif’s programs, appeal to both creative newcomers and professionals. With the image editing software Affinity Photo, the vector designer and the publishing tool Affinity Publisher, they have three powerful solutions at their fingertips, which are also supplemented by the online applications from Canva. Only an Adobe Premiere counterpart in the area of video editing is still missing from the portfolio.
Fortunately, the pricing of Affinity will not change, as can be seen from Serif’s FAQ. All apps will continue to be offered as individual purchases. Owners of the programs can continue to use them as before, but can look forward to some exciting free updates and extensions from V2.
