Australian editing and graphic designing company Canva has become one of the largest private companies on the planet with a valuation worth $ 40bn (£ 29bn).
The digital design and editing company had witnessed tremendous growth during the pandemic as more and more people started working from home due to COVID.
$200 Mb Private Funding Round
It has unveiled a new $ 200m private investment round hence, more than doubling the company’s valuation numbers in a span of five months.
Canva’s current valuation and it’s growth trajectory makes it one of the most important and valued startups on the globe, say analysts.
According to business data provider CB Insights, Canva’s $ 40bn valiation makes it the world’s most valued startup, only behind China’s ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, payment platform Stripe, Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX and Swedish fintech company iKlarna.
Co-Founders Of Canva
The new round of funding for Canva have also lropelled its founders to be among the ten richest people in Australia.
Canva was founded in Sydney in 2013 by Australians Melanie Perkins, 34, and Cliff Obrecht, 35.
Together the co-founders own about 36% of the company, according to a report by business news website Forbes.
On Wednesday, Co-founders of Canva said their intention was to donate a large amount – close to 30% of the company’s worth – to charities.
Canva offers custom design templates to make everything from greeting cards to posters, resumes and calendars.
Who Are The Customers of Canva?
And on Wednesday, Canva revealed it had grown its customers to more than 60 million users in 190 countries, and was on its way to send $ 1bn by the end of this year.
It said it had 500,000 paid customers, among them institutional clients such as Zoom, Salesforce, Paypal, Marriott International and American Airlines, which it said have all increased their use of Canva’s designing platforms and technology last year.
“From large enterprises to small businesses, the shift to distributed working has seen team adoption more than quadruple over the last 12 months,” the company said in a press release, referring to the number of companies taking up its software.
New Round Of Investments
Its latest fundraising cycle was led by global investment firm T. Rowe Price and investors include Franklin Templeton, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investments, Blackbird, Felicis, and AirTree Ventures.
The company doubled its staff this year, hiring more than a thousand new employees in 2021, with headquarters in Sydney and Manila.
