Australia's Canva raises $40m, achieves $1b valuation

Existing investors Blackbird Ventures and Felicis Ventures also participated. It follows a $15 million round in 2016 that valued the company at $345 million. Previous investors also include Matrix Partners, Airtree Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Founders Fund, Square Peg Capital, 500 Startups and InterWest Partners.

It brings Canva’s total funding to date to about $86 million. The company has yet to deploy the $30 million of capital received across its previous two funding rounds, and is expected to apply its further enlarged balance sheet to a global expansion in the near term.  

“Canva is one of the fastest growing SaaS [software-as-a-service] companies in history, and it’s done that with a profitable operation over the last couple of years, which gives you a sense of how rare it is,” said Niki Scevak, a managing director at Blackbird. “In terms of building its war chest, it’s really the future opportunity. At every stage of Canva’s journey, its ambition and opportunity to go in different directions have increased.”

Established in 2012 by Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht (pictured, center and left, with Cameron Adams, who subsequently joined the founding team), Canva offers a cloud-based platform and mobile app that allows users to create a custom-designed online presence. It is popular with marketers, non-profit organizations, bloggers, and the education sector.

The company plans to double its staff of 250 employees by the end of the year and pursue a number of marketing options related to new use-cases and workflow scenarios. The expansion will not divert from the company’s focus on the design segment, which investors consider an underpenetrated space.

“People have underestimated just how big a market there is for a tool that makes beautiful design because all communication is becoming graphical rather than just simply text,” Scevak added. “Design is embedded into every kind of task now.”

The investment extends a recent increase in momentum for Australia’s later-stage technology sector. This traction has been attributed largely to government support in the form of commercial crossover programs at state-run agencies and a A$1.1 billion ($860 million) innovation agenda.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Australia
• Sequoia Capital
• Blackbird Ventures
• TMT