Leonardo.AI, the Australian developer of a rapidly growing generative AI art platform, will be acquired by graphic design giant Canva for an undisclosed sum.
Although only launched in December 2022, the company raised $47 million in a funding round led by Sydney-based Blackbird Ventures.
The platform boasts more than 19 million users and launched its first foundational model, Phoenix, last month.
The acquisition marks Canva’s eighth buyout over the last decade. The company bought UK-based Serif, the developer of graphic design software Affinity, in March for more than $1 billion.
Leonardo.AI’s 120 researchers, engineers and designers will work alongside Canva’s existing research and development team that have been developing the firm’s Magic Studio suite of AI tools since 2023.
Alongside the integration Leonardo.Ai features into the Canva platform, the team will continue to develop its own web platform, similar to arrangements for the development of Affinity.
This will include work on its AI image and video generation tools alongside a pipeline of incoming new features. Leonardo.Ai tools have generated over one billion images since launching.
Leonardo.AI founder and chief executive JJ Fiasson said the acquisiton marks “the start of a new chapter which will accelerate the pace we innovate at 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,” Mr Fiasson said.
Canva chief product officer Cameron Adams said Canva is thrilled to welcome Leonardo.AI, which means “two Australian companies joining forces to bring world-first breakthroughs in AI and creativity”.
“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,” Mr Adams said.
Three AI image generators can currently be accessed through Canva: Magic Media text to image, OpenAI’s DALL-E, and Google Cloud’s Imagen.
Canva’s Magic Studio AI tools were launched in October 2023 ahead of the beta launch of Canva GPT in November 2023, built on OpenAI’s technology.
Canva’s last AI acquisition was in 2021 for Austrian startup Kaleido.AI, a producer of an image and video background removal service.
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