Canva to acquire generative AI platform Leonardo.AI

Canva announced plans to acquire Leonardo.AI. As one of Australia’s fastest-growing startups, and a leading generative AI content and research company, Leonardo.AI is empowering millions of people to bring their ideas to life through production-quality images and videos. The acquisition complements Canva’s offering and enhances the company’s vision to build a world-class suite of visual AI tools, the company said. Terms weren’t disclosed.

“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.”

Founded in late 2022, Leonardo’s foundational 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.

“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.”

Leonardo’s technology will complement Canva’s Magic Studio, the company’s suite of AI tools, which has been used more than 7 billion times since it launched in 2023. Canva said it 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.

Acquisitions have played an important role in elevating and accelerating Canva’s technology over the last decade. The acquisition of Leonardo is the company’s 8th acquisition, joining Affinity (2024), Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019), Pixabay (2019) and Zeetings (2018).