Canva

Canva is an online graphic design platform. It offers free access to a wide assortment of design tools and options, as well as premium options for paying customers.

Beginnings and early history

Canva was founded in 2012 in Sydney, Australia by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams. The initial idea came about when Perkins was teaching graphic design programs at the University of Western Australia and found that students struggled to learn the basics.

Partnering with co-founder Obrecht, the pair launched Fusion Books, an online design tool for students and teachers to create their own yearbooks. They soon realized that the technology they'd developed had much broader applications, and therefore they launched Canva together with tech co-founder Adams.

Growth

In March 2013, Canva raised a $3 million seed round from top Australian and U.S. investors including Matrix Partners, InterWest Partners, Bill Tai, Lars Rassmusen, Ken Goldman (CFO of Yahoo!) and 500 Startups.

In August 2013, Canva launched its Beta product: a simple drag-and-drop design tool with a library of more than 1 million photographs, graphics and fonts to choose from. The tools are for use by non-designers as well as professionals, and for both web and print media design and graphics. The website rapidly became popular, with more than 750,000 users in its first year.