Canva recently announced the acquisition of Leonardo.ai, a generative AI art company. This move marks Canva’s further expansion of its strategic layout in the AI field. The amount of the acquisition was undisclosed, but Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams confirmed that the transaction included cash and stock, and that Leonardo.ai’s 120 employees will also join Canva. This move will not only enhance Canva's AI capabilities, but also bring new technologies and features to its Magic Studio generative AI suite.
Recently, Canva announced the acquisition of Leonardo.ai, a startup that generates AI artistic content and research, to further increase its investment in AI technology. The exact amount of the deal was not disclosed, but Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams said the acquisition was a combination of cash and stock. It is worth mentioning that Leonardo.ai’s 120 employees, including its executive team, will join Canva.
Adams said in an interview that Leonardo.ai will continue to operate independently, focusing on rapid innovation, research and development, and using Canva's resources to advance these goals. He also stressed that all of Leonardo.ai’s existing tools and solutions will continue to be available. The goal of this acquisition is to help Leonardo.ai develop its platform while promoting user growth through Canva's investment, including expanding its API business and increasing investment in basic model research and development.
Leonardo.ai was founded in 2022 and initially focused on the creation of video game assets. As the team continued to explore, they decided to expand the platform's capabilities to meet a wider range of needs, such as creating and training AI models for industries such as fashion, advertising, and architecture. Currently, Leonardo.ai not only provides private cloud services for collaboration tools and models, but also allows customers to build their own technical infrastructure based on its platform.
Leonardo.ai differs from other generative AI art platforms in that users have greater control. Leonardo.ai's "real-time canvas" function allows users to enter text prompts and then quickly sketch, and AI will generate realistic images based on the text and sketches in real time.
Canva has long supported the adoption of generative AI by creators and has committed $200 million over the next few years to pay creators who agree to use their content for AI model training. Currently, Leonardo.ai has more than 19 million registered users and has created more than 1 billion images.
Leonardo.ai will contribute to Canva's Magic Studio generation AI suite, Adams said. They plan to integrate Leonardo's technology into Magic Studio, potentially enhancing the capabilities of existing tools or introducing new generative AI capabilities directly into Canva.
Canva has been investing in the research and development of generative AI tools since December 2022, and has significantly increased its development speed through internal projects and acquisitions in the past few months. Leonardo.ai is Canva’s eighth acquisition and its second this year. Not long ago, Canva acquired British design company Affinity for about $380 million.
Highlights:
Canva acquires Leonardo.ai, a generative AI startup, aiming to increase investment in AI technology.
Leonardo.ai will continue to operate independently and work with Canva to advance technological innovation.
? Canva plans to integrate Leonardo’s technology into its Magic Studio generation AI suite to enrich user experience.
Canva's acquisition of Leonardo.ai is another powerful move for its continued investment in the field of AI. It heralds Canva's further development and innovation in the field of generative AI in the future, and it is worth looking forward to its follow-up actions.