Canva, an Australia-based graphic design software provider backed by advertising agency VaynerMedia, raised $200m yesterday at a $40bn valuation.
Investment manager T Rowe Price led the round, which included Franklin Templeton, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investments, Blackbird, Felicis Ventures and AirTree Ventures.
Founded in 2012, Canva has built freemium visual communications software that helps users without a graphic design background create media assets including illustrations, presentations, posters and videos. It also provides free templates, stock photos, audio and video clips and fonts through the platform.
T Rowe Price and Dragoneer co-led a $71m round for the company in April this year that valued it at $15bn, while returning backers including Skip Capital and Blackbird Ventures also took part.
Canva had secured $60m 10 months earlier, in a round co-led by Blackbird Ventures and Sequoia Capital China at a $6bn valuation, with fellow existing shareholders Bond and Felicis also participating.
Vayner Capital, an affiliate of VaynerMedia, participated in a $15m series A round for Canva in 2015 that also featured Blackbird, Felicis and Matrix Partners.
General Catalyst, BVP, Shasta Ventures, AirTree Ventures, Founders Fund, InterWest Partners and 500 Startups are also among the company’s earlier investors.
Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva, said: “More than 60 million people are now using Canva for everything from launching startups to raising awareness for nonprofits, supporting remote learning, collaborating in distributed teams, and managing global enterprise brands at scale.
“We are incredibly excited to be further accelerating our mission to truly empower the world to design.”
