# Leonardo.ai
**Leonardo.ai** (legally Leonardo Interactive Pty Ltd) is an Australian generative AI platform for creating images, videos, and other visual media, founded in Sydney in 2022 and acquired by the design company Canva in July 2024. The platform combines its own foundational image models, Phoenix and the Lucid family, with hosted third-party models, and offers a web editor, mobile apps, and a developer API.[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) • [2](https://www.leonardo.ai/phoenix)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2022, Sydney, Australia; co-founders J.J. Fiasson (CEO), Jachin Bhasme, and Chris Gillis; originally aimed at video game asset creation[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) |
| Funding | $31 million round announced December 2023 (Blackbird, Side Stage Ventures, Smash Capital, TIRTA Ventures, Gaorong Capital, Samsung Next); TechCrunch reported over $38.8 million raised before acquisition, Forbes Australia reported $47 million[3](https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/leonardo-ai/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) • [4](https://www.forbes.com.au/news/investing/canva-acquires-aussie-genai-start-up-leonardo-ai/) |
| Acquisition | Canva, announced July 29–30, 2024; terms undisclosed (cash and stock mix); Canva's eighth acquisition; the Australian Financial Review reported a price above $320 million[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) • [5](https://article-scraper-next.vercel.app/articles/929) |
| Scale at acquisition | More than 19 million registered users and over one billion images generated[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) |
| Own models | Phoenix (first foundational model, 2024); Lucid Origin and Lucid Realism (2025)[2](https://www.leonardo.ai/phoenix) • [6](https://leonardo.ai/news/lucid-origin-ai-image-model) |
| Ownership terms | Paid subscribers own the IP in their outputs; free-tier outputs vest in Leonardo; public content is licensed back for AI training, private content is not[7](https://www.leonardo.ai/terms-of-service) |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type I and Type II accredited[2](https://www.leonardo.ai/phoenix) |
## History and funding
The founders met while working at a video game company and originally built Leonardo.Ai for game asset creation, later expanding it to image generation for industries such as fashion, advertising, and architecture.[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) CEO and co-founder J.J. Fiasson, previously co-founder of the gaming studio Raini Studios, said the team began experimenting with open-source generative AI tools in 2021.[3](https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/leonardo-ai/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block)
In December 2023 the company announced a $31 million funding round from [Blackbird](https://www.edgepedia.org/blackbird), Side Stage Ventures, Smash Capital, TIRTA Ventures, Gaorong Capital, and Samsung Next. At that point it reported seven million users who had generated more than 700 million images, and had launched an enterprise version with collaboration tools, private-cloud hosting, and API access.[3](https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/leonardo-ai/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) By mid-2024 the platform had more than 19 million registered users and over one billion generated images.[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) The Australian Financial Review later reported 29 million users within two years of launch.[8](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/financial-review_the-winner-of-the-afrs-ai-trailblazer-award-activity-7335514029295079425-EbK0)
## Acquisition by Canva
Canva announced the acquisition on July 29–30, 2024. The financial terms were not disclosed, but Canva co-founder and chief product officer [Cameron Adams](https://www.edgepedia.org/cameron-adams) described the consideration as a mix of cash and stock, and all 120 employees, including the executive team, joined Canva. Leonardo was Canva's eighth acquisition and its second that year, following the purchase of the UK design company Affinity for an estimated $380 million three months earlier.[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) The Australian Financial Review reported the price as more than $320 million, though both companies declined to confirm a figure.[5](https://article-scraper-next.vercel.app/articles/929)
Under Canva, Leonardo continues to operate its web platform independently while Canva integrates the technology into its own products. Canva stated it would integrate the Phoenix foundational model into its Magic Studio suite, and its Dream Lab image generator runs on Phoenix alongside other Leonardo models such as PhotoReal, Lightning XL, and Lucid Origin.[9](https://www.canva.com/en_in/newsroom/news/leonardo-ai/) • [10](https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-ai-image-generators) Canva committed that no Canva user content would be shared with Leonardo unless users expressly opt in.[9](https://www.canva.com/en_in/newsroom/news/leonardo-ai/)
## Models and platform
**Phoenix.** Phoenix, released in 2024, is Leonardo's first foundational model, built entirely in-house. The company emphasizes its prompt adherence, text rendering inside images, and plain-language image editing.[2](https://www.leonardo.ai/phoenix) • [11](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/the-art-behind-training-gen-ai-models) Ethan Smith, Leonardo's Lead AI Researcher and co-founder, described Phoenix as setting the blueprint for the company's approach, pairing technical performance with deliberately curated training datasets shaped by human aesthetic judgment.[11](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/the-art-behind-training-gen-ai-models)
**Lucid Origin and Lucid Realism.** Lucid Origin, launched August 5, 2025, is trained for Full HD output and positioned as a versatile general-purpose model with strong prompt adherence, text rendering, and stylistic range. Lucid Realism is tuned for cinematic, story-driven imagery and image-to-video work.[6](https://leonardo.ai/news/lucid-origin-ai-image-model) Shortly after launch, Lucid Origin entered the top 10 on the community-driven text-to-image leaderboard at [Artificial Analysis](https://www.edgepedia.org/artificial-analysis).[11](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/the-art-behind-training-gen-ai-models) On that leaderboard in 2026, Lucid Origin Ultra scored 913 ELO (rank 95) and Lucid Origin Fast 901 (rank 102), while Phoenix 1.0 Ultra scored 843 (rank 131).[12](https://artificialanalysis.ai/embed/text-to-image-leaderboard/leaderboard/text-to-image)
**Platform tools.** Beyond generation, the platform offers a Canvas Editor with inpainting and outpainting, real-time generation while typing, image upscaling, image-to-video animation, background removal, and custom model training on a user's own assets. Reviewers have highlighted the breadth of tools; Tom's Guide called Leonardo "a powerhouse of AI image editing with style and versatility," while noting that inpainting and the Motion video feature were inconsistent.[13](https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/leonardo-review) • [14](https://www.techradar.com/pro/software-services/leonardoai-ai-image-generator-review) The platform also hosts third-party models, including [Veo 3](https://www.edgepedia.org/veo-3), FLUX variants, GPT-Image, Nano Banana, Kling, and Seedance.[15](https://www.leonardo.ai/api)
## API and business use
Leonardo positions its API as "visual-first": users design a generation in the web interface, then export the exact API code (Python, Node.js, or cURL) with all parameters preconfigured. Prebuilt templates called Blueprints chain multi-step tasks such as product videos or photo restoration. Pricing is pay-as-you-go API credit, with custom plans for higher concurrency.[15](https://www.leonardo.ai/api)
Business use cases include print-on-demand merchandise design and brand campaigns. Ducati's "Hack the A.Icon" campaign, built on Leonardo's API, let riders generate visions of their dream Scrambler motorbike, producing over 15,000 unique designs in one week.[16](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/image-generation-api-use-cases) Gamepack Studios, a game development outsourcing studio, reported using Leonardo for concept art, sketch-to-render workflows, and upscaling, and estimated it cut production costs by around 50 percent.[17](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/gamepack-game-development-with-leonardo-ai) In August 2026, Canva migrated the remove.bg background-removal API onto Leonardo's platform, giving remove.bg customers access to Leonardo's broader toolset under one account and credit system.[18](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/removebg-api-leonardo)
## Ownership, privacy, and safety
Leonardo's Terms of Service draw a sharp line between subscription tiers. Paid subscribers own all intellectual property rights in content they create, and can mark it public or private. Free-tier outputs vest in Leonardo upon creation. Users grant Leonardo a broad, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, and transferable license over any Public Content, expressly including training AI models and commercial use; Private Content is not used for training or product development without express written consent.[7](https://www.leonardo.ai/terms-of-service) The company's help center and [privacy policy](https://www.edgepedia.org/privacy-policy) confirm that private generations are not used for model training, and the API documentation states that images generated through the API are not used for training, with output rights assigned to the developer.[19](https://intercom.help/leonardo-ai/en/articles/8044018-commercial-usage) • [20](https://www.leonardo.ai/privacy-policy) • [15](https://www.leonardo.ai/api)
The Terms of Service prohibit generating non-consensual sexual content and other harmful material, and the enterprise master services agreement commits Leonardo not to train on private customer data without written consent.[7](https://www.leonardo.ai/terms-of-service) • [21](https://www.leonardo.ai/master-services-agreement) The platform's guardrails have drawn scrutiny: in March 2024, 404 Media reported that Leonardo lacked effective protections against generating nonconsensual deepfake pornography, and Canva's Cameron Adams said ahead of the acquisition that Leonardo had "done a ton of work to tighten up their systems," while some users subsequently complained that filters had become overly restrictive.[22](https://fortune.com/2024/07/30/canva-plans-to-acquire-an-ai-startup-criticized-for-generating-deepfake-porn-its-systems-are-tightened-but-can-it-avoid-controversy/)
On training data, the company has said its models are trained on "licensed, synthetic and publicly available/open source data," and that its early platform was built on open-source technology, initially [Stable Diffusion](https://www.edgepedia.org/stable-diffusion), before its in-house models.[1](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block) • [3](https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/leonardo-ai/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block)
## Reception
Reviews have generally treated Leonardo as a feature-rich alternative to [Midjourney](https://www.edgepedia.org/midjourney) and [Adobe Firefly](https://www.edgepedia.org/adobe-firefly). TechRadar's July 2024 review praised image quality, speed, and value while criticizing UI clunkiness; Tom's Guide's August 2024 review gave it an Editor's Choice rating, calling out real-time generation and outpainting as strengths and moderation bugs on self-tuned models as a weakness.[14](https://www.techradar.com/pro/software-services/leonardoai-ai-image-generator-review) • [13](https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/leonardo-review) In comparative surveys of AI image generators, Leonardo is typically grouped with Midjourney and Adobe Firefly as a production-oriented platform offering generation, editing, and customization controls in one place.[23](https://tooldix.com/compare/midjourney-vs-firefly-vs-leonardo) In 2025, Leonardo.Ai won the AI Trailblazer award at the Australian Financial Review's AI Awards.[8](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/financial-review_the-winner-of-the-afrs-ai-trailblazer-award-activity-7335514029295079425-EbK0)
## References
1. [Kyle Wiggers (July 29, 2024). Canva acquires Leonardo.ai to boost its generative AI efforts. TechCrunch.](https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block)
2. [Phoenix by Leonardo.Ai. Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/phoenix)
3. [Catherine Shu (December 6, 2023). Sydney-based generative AI art platform Leonardo.Ai raises $31M. TechCrunch.](https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/06/leonardo-ai/?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block)
4. [Anastasia Santoreneos (July 30, 2024). Canva acquires Aussie genAI start-up Leonardo.AI. Forbes Australia.](https://www.forbes.com.au/news/investing/canva-acquires-aussie-genai-start-up-leonardo-ai/)
5. [Nick Bonyhady (July 31, 2024). Canva buys Leonardo AI for more than $320 million. Australian Financial Review (scraped copy).](https://article-scraper-next.vercel.app/articles/929)
6. [Lucid Origin – Leonardo.AI's latest Gen AI model (August 5, 2025). Leonardo.Ai.](https://leonardo.ai/news/lucid-origin-ai-image-model)
7. [Leonardo.Ai Terms of Service. Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/terms-of-service)
8. [The Australian Financial Review (2025). Trailblazer JJ Fiasson on AI, art and life under Canva. LinkedIn post.](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/financial-review_the-winner-of-the-afrs-ai-trailblazer-award-activity-7335514029295079425-EbK0)
9. [Welcome to Canva, Leonardo! Canva Newsroom.](https://www.canva.com/en_in/newsroom/news/leonardo-ai/)
10. [I've created thousands of AI images and these are the best AI image generators of 2026. Tom's Guide.](https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-ai-image-generators)
11. [The Art Behind Training Gen AI Models: An Interview with Ethan Smith (August 14, 2025). Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/the-art-behind-training-gen-ai-models)
12. [AA-Image-T2I v2.0 Leaderboard. Artificial Analysis.](https://artificialanalysis.ai/embed/text-to-image-leaderboard/leaderboard/text-to-image)
13. [Nigel Powell (August 26, 2024). Leonardo review. Tom's Guide.](https://www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/leonardo-review)
14. [Nigel Powell (July 23, 2024). Leonardo.ai AI image generator review. TechRadar.](https://www.techradar.com/pro/software-services/leonardoai-ai-image-generator-review)
15. [AI Image & Video Generation API for Developers. Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/api)
16. [How Businesses Are Building With Media Generation API. Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/image-generation-api-use-cases)
17. [Gamepack Enhances Game Development with Leonardo.Ai's API (April 17, 2024). Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/gamepack-game-development-with-leonardo-ai)
18. [remove.bg API is Moving to Leonardo.Ai (August 28, 2026). Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/news/removebg-api-leonardo)
19. [Commercial Usage. Leonardo.Ai Help Center.](https://intercom.help/leonardo-ai/en/articles/8044018-commercial-usage)
20. [Leonardo.Ai Privacy Policy. Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/privacy-policy)
21. [Leonardo.Ai Master Services Agreement. Leonardo.Ai.](https://www.leonardo.ai/master-services-agreement)
22. [Sharon Goldman (July 30, 2024). Canva plans to acquire an AI startup criticized for generating deepfake porn. Fortune.](https://fortune.com/2024/07/30/canva-plans-to-acquire-an-ai-startup-criticized-for-generating-deepfake-porn-its-systems-are-tightened-but-can-it-avoid-controversy/)
23. [Midjourney vs Adobe Firefly vs Leonardo AI – Image Generator Comparison. ToolDix.](https://tooldix.com/compare/midjourney-vs-firefly-vs-leonardo)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Technology and the built world › Computing and digital systems › Modern AI: foundation models, generative AI, and the AI industry › AI companies, people, and products › AI startups and application companies › Generative media companies*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Oct 11, 2026; Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license