Founded in 2013 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams in Perth, Australia, Canva was born from Melanie's frustration with how difficult and expensive professional design tools like Photoshop were. She spent years pitching the idea before finally securing funding. Today, Canva is one of the world's most valuable startups with a $26 billion valuation, used by over 170 million people across 190 countries. The platform offers thousands of templates for presentations, social media, posters, and documents. Canva has also expanded into enterprise with Canva for Teams, and acquired tools like Affinity, Flourish, and Pexels to broaden its creative ecosystem.
Active Founders
Melanie Perkins
Founder / CEO
Melanie Perkins is the co-founder and CEO of Canva. She started her first design company, Fusion Books, at age 19 while studying at the University of Western Australia, helping schools create custom yearbooks. After years of rejections from investors, she secured backing from Bill Tai and Lars Rasmussen of Google. Melanie has become one of the most celebrated female tech founders in the world, frequently appearing on lists of the most powerful women in business and technology globally.
Cliff Obrecht
Co-Founder / COO
Cliff Obrecht is the co-founder and COO of Canva, and Melanie Perkins' partner in both business and life. He helped build Canva's operations, sales, and business development from the ground up, securing early partnerships and growing the company's revenue engine. The couple made headlines for pledging the majority of their Canva shares to philanthropic causes through the Canva Foundation.
Canva
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