Australia's Canva raises $60m at $6b valuation

“Canva’s accelerated growth is indicative of the new normal, as more teams realize the need for a more scalable, more collaborative, more affordable and more user-friendly design platform,” Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and COO of Canva said in a statement. 

“Now more than ever, organizations of all sizes are doubling down on building a reliable remote workplace, and are turning to modern productivity platforms like Canva to ensure they remain flexible and scalable.”

Blackbird Ventures and Sequoia Capital China led the latest round, according to Bloomberg. General Catalyst Partners and Felicis Ventures also participated, as did Bond Capital, a vehicle launched by Silicon Valley veteran Mary Meeker. Bond led an $85 million round for the company last October at a valuation of $3.2 billion.

"The recent changes in our world have pressured organizations to embrace new methods of work and collaboration,” Mood Rowghani, a general partner at Bond added. “As the lines between home and office have blurred, Canva's digital design platform is empowering a new wave of productivity and interaction for businesses, schools, and non-profits across the globe.”

Canva provides a cloud-based platform and mobile app that allows marketers and other individual users to create a custom-designed online presence. It has more than 20 million monthly active users across 190 countries, including North Korea and Antarctica. Services are offered in more than 100 languages, and 55% of customers use the platform in a language other than English.

The company claims that design creation and sharing on its platform has increased by more than 50% since the onset of COVID-19. This is expected to drive the rollout of a number of new workplace collaboration features aimed at helping teams of all sizes engage in visual communication. The new products will include real-time design collaboration and brainstorming software, as well as a tool for delivering interactive presentations. 

Since last year, Canva has pushed the development of more workforce collaboration and industry-facing tools such as Canva Enterprise, a corporate branding product. It claims its technology is now used by more than 500,000 organizations including Warner Music and American Airlines. Clients also include some 90,000 schools and universities, as well as around 55,000 non-profit groups including the World Health Organization.

Sequoia led a $40 million round for the company in 2018 with support from Blackbird and Felicis. Previous investors include Matrix Partners, Airtree Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Founders Fund, Square Peg Capital, 500 Startups, InterWest Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Five V Capital.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Media
• Expansion
• Australia
• Blackbird Ventures
• Sequoia Capital
• General Catalyst
• TMT