High-profile angel investors back Australian start-up Canva

The company's other backers include Bill Tai, a prominent US and Asia angel investor, Seek co-founder Paul Bassat, Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman and Lars Rasmussen, director of engineering at Facebook. Institutional capital has come from US-based VC firms Matrix Partners, InterWest Partners and 500 Startups as well as Australia-based Blackbird Ventures, which last week reached a $31 million first close on its most recent fund.

Commercialisation Australia also contributed through its Early Stage Commercialisation program.

The funding round came together after Canva's co-founders, Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht, attended Tai's Mai Tai kiteboarding and entrepreneur conference in Hawaii last year and were introduced to a number of potential investors. Perkins' association with Tai dates back to a chance meeting two years earlier.

"Our investors bring significant experience and expertise to the table and are accomplished entrepreneurs in their own right," Perkins said in a statement. "These are people who've sat behind the wheel at some of Silicon Valley's most successful tech companies."

Canva is a collaborative design platform using software hosted in the cloud. Its debut product is expected to launch in May. Perkins and Obrecht previously launched an online school yearbook design product called Fusion Books in 2007, while at university. They have been joined at Canva by Cameron Adams, former lead designer at Google.

"The Canva story is highly compelling. This is a strong team with a big vision, and I'm thoroughly enjoying working with them," said Rasmussen. "Design is moving into a more collaborative and social world, and I predict Canva will be leading the way."

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• Topics
• Technology
• Venture
• Early-stage
• Australasia
• Australia
• Venture
• seed
• TMT
• Matrix Partners
• Interwest Ventures
• Blackbird Ventures
• 500 Startups