It’s the sweetheart of Australian tech, and Canva is looking to further expand its capabilities. The company announced that it has acquired Flourish, a platform for data visualisation.

Growing in popularity since its inception in 2013, Canva saw its most successful year to date in 2021. Its active monthly users grew by over 30 million, with now over 75 million active monthly users to the design platform. As users look for easy-to-use and affordable visual communication, Canva has been able to grow with the demand.

With the acquisition of Flourish, Canva is allowing users who are looking to vibrantly and beautifully display data. Canva, which has previously been a favourite of creative directors, artists and graphic designers, has become common in workplaces across the world for engaging presentations, reports and other visual communications. 

“Data storytelling has emerged as an increasingly critical part of visual communication for teams across almost every industry,” explains Canva co-founder and CEO, Melanie Perkins. 

“Welcoming Flourish to Canva marks the latest step in our mission to empower the world to design. We’re incredibly excited to welcome their talented team as we work together to combine their world-leading data visualisation technology with the Canva magic our community know,” Perkins continues.

The power of data visualisation

Data is so imperative in marketers day-to-day. Understanding unique data sets and being able to ensure that it’s telling a story can be a challenge though. Flourish, founded in 2016 by Duncan Clark and Robin Houston, was created to make data compelling.

With more than 500 million presentations and over 150 million infographics having been created in Canva, Flourish will be able to integrate its technology which allows for engaging and interactive data to be presented.

“We’re beyond excited for this next step in Flourish’s journey,” says Duncan Clark, CEO and co-founder, Flourish. 

“By joining forces with Canva, we can bring the power of data storytelling to the world’s leading visual communication platform, embraced by millions of people across the globe. We can’t wait to help Canva’s vast community of users bring their data to life.”