The Canva Decade: Tracing the journey from bedroom startup to global success
Canva has hit 10 years on the market, so we’re taking a look back at some of the Aussie unicorn’s biggest milestones.
It’s been 10 years since Canva was first launched to the public. From its humble beginnings in Perth, it has become the epitome of a startup success story.
In the decade since its inception, the company raised over $889 million across 15 funding rounds, reached unicorn status, and became one of the most highly used graphic design tools in the world.
It’s also become an inspiration for other Australian founders, especially women, to try and make their own startup dreams a reality.
Canva has been open about its struggles, from its very first “pretty terrible” pitch deck to the hundreds of rejections it got before finally getting the first ‘yes’ from an investor.
In celebration of 10 years of Canva, we’re taking a look back at some of its biggest milestones. Of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list. Canva has done a lot over the last ten years, these are just some of the highlights.
2007
- Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht launch Fusion Books — an online tool to design and print custom yearbooks — while Perkins is a student at the University of Western Australia.
- Fusion Books was popular and even expanded into other countries and informed the idea for an online, easy-to-use design tool with a broader market use.
2012
- Perkins, Obrecht and Cameron Adams found Canva.
2013
- August: The beta version launches to the public.
2015
- August: Canva Pro is launched.
- October: Canva raises $21 million, with the company being valued at around $230 million.
2016
- July: Canva for iPhone is launched.
2017
- May: Canva introduces its ‘Magic Resize’ feature, allowing pro users to instantly resize designs.
2018
- January: The startup hits unicorn status with a valuation of $1.4 billion after raising $56 million.
2019
- May: Canva raises $101 million
- May: It also suffers a data breach, resulting in the data of 139 million users being stolen.
- May: The company acquires free stock content sites Pexels and Pixabay.
2020
- June: The company raises $87.3 million at a valuation of $8.7 billion
- It also launches Canva for Desktop and Canva for Education.
2021
- April: Canva raises $92.5 million, more than doubling its valuation to $19.5 billion
- September: It was reported that Canva raised another $250 million round, taking its valuation to $55 billion.
2022
- The company valuation is marked down from US$40 billion to US$25.6 billion as part of a wider tech startup trend.
2023
- March: Canva gets on the generative AI trend with its new
- August: Blackbird Ventures sells $150 million of its shares, which it held since 2015.
