Canva Buys London Data Startup Flourish, Plans Europe Hires

(Bloomberg) -- Canva Inc., one of the world's most valuable private software companies, has acquired London-based data visualization platform Flourish to expand its suite of design tools.

Flourish was founded in 2016 by former data journalist Duncan Clark and computer scientist Robin Houston to make it easier for people tell stories with data. It allows non-coders to choose from thousands of templates to create visuals without having to download software. Today, the firm has more than 800,000 users including the BBC and Moody's Corp.

With Flourish, Canva aims to help companies and organizations visualize data. It has recently introduced a number of new features as users turn to Canva's platform to inject more creativity into presentations and reports. Canva did not reveal the price of the deal.

“We searched far and wide to understand who is best in class in regards to telling stories with data, and Flourish was the company that we ended up choosing,” Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and chief operating officer of Canva, said in a video interview from Sydney. “It's the simplification and democratization of data that's at Flourish's core, which is embedded into the future of where we're going, which is visual communication in the workplace.”

Canva, valued at $40 billion last year, plans to hire about 100 people to double the size of its workforce in Europe to 200, with London and Vienna being two hubs in the region, Obrecht said. Flourish has 44 employees in London and Canva has about 60 people in Vienna.

The Australian company has made several acquisitions in recent years to rapidly expand the business. It now has more than 75 million monthly active users, up from 50 million a year ago, and 2,500 employees globally.