The power of having a successful startup like Canva - and now a whale -as part of our Australian Ecosystem - has clocked another win for Australian Innovation! .
In July 2024, Canva acquired Leonardo.ai, a generative AI content and research startup, to enhance its suite of AI-powered design tools.
Cameron Adams of Canva said the deal represented two Australian companies joining forces to bring “world-first breakthroughs in AI and creativity”.
The 120 employees of Leonardo.ai led by founder JJ Fiasson had rapidly expanded its user base, amassing over 19 million users and facilitating the creation of more than a billion images.
Canva and Leonardo declined to disclose the price tag, but sources with knowledge of the deal told afr that it was higher than Leonardo’s last funding round valuation, which was understood to have been $US80 million ($122 million).
Its investors, including Blackbird Ventures, had described it as the “next Canva”.
What Leanardo does
It has built a generative AI platform that is used to make images and 3D model textures from a written prompt, challenging rivals like OpenAI’s DALL-E, Midjourney, Scenario and Stable Diffusion.
It has proven particularly popular with video game designers, product designers and architects.
The deal and the backstory
Canva’s founders Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams had been chatting with Mr Fiasson about product collaboration, after Leonardo had launched its foundational AI model Phoenix.
Leonardo is less than two-years-old, and had raised $US31 million from investors including high-profile Canva investor Blackbird Ventures last December who own 28pc of the company
The Opportunity
The acquisition opens up the market to 200m customers - Eliza H from Leanardo tells the AI hackers at sxsw2024 as she is recruiting for 25 engineers and ai enthusiasts to join Leanardo in their brand new offices in North Sydney!
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