Latest news with #MagicBrief
West Australian
9 hours ago
- Business
- West Australian
Tech unicorn Canva picks up Sydney startup MagicBrief
Perth-founded tech unicorn Canva is buying an Australian AI-powered creative intelligence startup as it pushes deeper into the enterprise and marketing sector. Canva said the acquisition of Sydney-based MagicBrief would build out its Visual Suite offering for marketing and creative teams. MagicBrief was founded in 2022. Its creative analytics and research platform uses AI to help marketers better understand and respond to their advertising content strategies, formats, and messages that perform best with audiences. The tools are already being used by thousands of global brands, marketers and agencies to analyse and inform creative development and have to date analysed more than $6 billion in ad spending. The purchase price was not disclosed. Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht said the deal marked a major expansion of the company — which bills itself as 'the world's only all-in-one visual communication platform' — and introduces a 'powerful' new layer of creative intelligence to its recently upgraded Visual Suite. 'We've spent the last decade empowering millions of teams to create impactful and engaging visual content,' Mr Obrecht said. 'Now, with MagicBrief joining Canva, we're entering the next frontier by powering the entire content and marketing workflow, from ideation and creation to deployment, measurement, and now analysis and optimisation. 'In today's visual economy, winning brands are those that know exactly what creative works, where it works, and why. By combining MagicBrief's AI-powered insights with Canva's Visual Suite, we're giving every team the tools to not just create great content, but drive stronger results.' George Howes, co-founder and chief executive of MagicBrief, said the startup would continue to operate independently while its technology and team integrate into Canva. 'We started MagicBrief to give creative teams smarter tools to move faster and make better work,' Mr Howes said. 'Joining Canva takes that vision to the next level — helping us reach more marketers and turn great ideas into high performing creative.' Canva was launched from a Dianella loungeroom in 2013 by Mr Obrecht and now wife Melanie Perkins, who met while she was studying at the University of Western Australia. Now based in Sydney, the private company which has been backed by some of the world top tech investors, has enjoyed exponential growth to more than 240 million monthly users across 190 countries, with annualised revenue of $US3 billion ($4.6b). The company is now reportedly worth almost $49b — putting it ahead of the market capitalisation of big names such as Rio Tinto, Fortescue, Woolworths and Coles. But its founders has remained tight-lipped on a time frame for long-running rumours of a float in the US. A listing would likely bring in fresh capital that could be used for product development and further acquisitions. Mr Obrecht and Ms Perkins were recently placed sixth on the Australian Financial Review's annual list of Australia's richest people, with an estimated combine et worth of $14.1b.
AU Financial Review
16 hours ago
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Canva's IPO has been discussed for 10 years. What if it never happens?
Give Canva points for consistency – another acquisition, another set of impressive growth numbers, more gentle pushback on the idea that an initial public offering is around the corner. Canva's founders, Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams, have been deflecting speculation about a company float for a decade now. Adams was at it again after announcing the tech giant would buy AI marketing tool Magic Brief for an undisclosed amount, telling The Australian Financial Review that while Canva has long been IPO ready, it's no closer to pressing the button on what would be a seismic event for Australia's venture capital sector.
CNBC
16 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Canva expands from design into analytics with acquisition of MagicBrief
Canva has grown into a $32 billion startup through its popular design tools used for easily creating images, marketing material and presentations. Now the company, with its 12th acquisition, is buying its way into the analytics market. Canva said on Tuesday that it's buying MagicBrief, whose technology is used for analyzing ad performance, for an undisclosed sum. With MagicBrief, companies can track spending and engagement on their ads and see what's working well for competitors. Around 240 million people use Canva's products, which compete with offerings from Adobe's Creative Cloud. The company has been deepening its capabilities in artificial intelligence, incorporating it into photo editing, coding and by incorporating chatbots. "We feel like, especially with AI, we can really democratize marketing and allow marketers to do a lot more with less," Cliff Obrecht, Canva's co-founder and chief operating officer, said in an interview. Canva, which ranked fifth on CNBC's latest Disruptor 50 list, has raised over $560 million, and was valued most recently at $32 billion, though that's a step down from its peak of $40 billion in 2021, when private markets were at their frothiest. Obrecht said the company has $1 billion in the bank. Canva plans to incorporate MagicBrief into a broader product that it will announce later this year, Obrecht said. In October, Adobe announced the availability of a tool for creating ads with AI and then tracking performance. Meanwhile, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Reddit are all pushing generative AI systems to boost the reach of online ads. Some marketers have used Meta's offerings to tweak the visual appearance of their ads with hopes of gaining traction with certain audiences, CNBC reported in December. Founded in 2022, MagicBrief has 14 employees and is based in Canva's hometown of Sydney, Australia. In 2023, the company announced a $2 million funding round, with investments from Archangel and Blackbird, which was Canva's first investor. The startup has tens of millions of dollars in annualized revenue, Obrecht said. Canva, which started up in 2013, has 5,500 employees, with over $3 billion in annualized revenue. It's one of the companies that venture capitalists are most excited about as an IPO candidate, but Obrecht said there won't be an offering this year. The focus, he said, is winning "over the next 10 years," and not just hitting quarterly numbers. "We feel that's very short-sighted, and public markets do gravitate you more to quarter-on-quarter performance," he said.
