- Online design company Canva recently raised $85 million in a round of funding led by Bond Capital at a $3.2 billion valuation. These are the details.
Online design company Canva recently announced it raised $85 million led by Bond Capital — which is the venture capital firm founded by Mary Meeker. As Canva is led by 32-year-old CEO Melanie Perkins, it makes the company one of the most valuable female-led startups in the world, according to Bloomberg.
Meeker had selected Canva as her first investment after launching Bond Capital. And Meeker is well-known for putting together a widely acclaimed annual Internet trends report.
General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, Blackbird, and Sequoia China also joined this round.
With this round of funding, Canva is going to double the company headcount to 1,400 over the coming year and the company will be launching a service called Canva for Enterprise.
Canva’s users utilize the service for building advertising creatives, social media banners, creating logos, etc. Based in Sydney, Australia, Canva has opened up offices in Manila and Beijing.
“We’ve been working very closely with Mary Meeker and her team at Bond since the last round,” said Perkins via Bloomberg. “We saw there is a huge opportunity to help enterprises truly transform the modern workplace and become more efficient.”
And going forward, Canva is focused on expanding its services and building presentation products. Plus the company will also improve on its collaborative tools.
One of the most appealing aspects of Canva is the simplicity for company employees in different time zones to easily collaborate on marketing materials in. Around 85% of Fortune 500 companies already use Canva.
Bond general partner Mood Rowghani pointed out that Canva’s business model around building content, community, and commerce is a trait that the venture firm sees in the fastest growing companies in the world. And Rowghani believes that Canva’s platform will change the way that businesses work.
Perkins was inspired to build Canva while studying at the University of Western Australia and she noticed the lack of tools available while teaching students how to use design software. At the age of 19, Perkins partnered with fellow student Cliff Obrecht to launch a design platform called Fusion Books. Several years later, Cameron Adams joined them and then they founded Canva. And in April 2014, Canva hired Guy Kawasaki as its chief evangelist.
Now Canva has 20 million monthly active users across 190 countries.
