35-Year-Old Canva Founder Melanie Perkins Got Rejected By 100 VCs. Now Her $26 Billion Design Startup Is Ready To Take On Microsoft And Google - Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce (2024)

FAQs

Why was Canva rejected? ›

Canva's founder got rejected by 100 VCs. They didn't want to back co-founders who were romantically involved. They didn't want to do an overseas deal with an Australian start-up. They didn't want to take a bet on a tech company founded by two people without much formal tech experience.

Despite having zero Silicon Valley connections, Perkins pitched her idea to 100 venture capitalists and was turned down every time. But she did not give up.

Canva is going corporate. With 185 million active users, a $26 billion valuation and annual recurring revenue of about $2.3 billion, the eleven year old design software company is already too big to be considered a startup challenger in a traditional sense.

Obstacles Melanie Faced

One of the biggest hurdles was getting investors to believe in her vision. In the early days of Canva, Melanie and her team pitched their idea to more than 100 investors, and they were rejected by all of them. However, this setback did not deter Melanie.

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Sacra estimates that Canva is at $1.7B in annual recurring revenue (ARR), up 54% from $1.1B last year. In 2021, Canva was at $750M in ARR at the end of the year, up 100% from $325M in 2020.

The Australian has just listed Perkins, who is only 34 years old, as part of the Top 10 richest people in the country along with her husband, co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht. That makes her the second richest woman in Australia. The couple are worth 15.89 billion dollars.

Canva was founded in Perth, Australia, by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams on 1 January 2013. In its first year, Canva had more than 750,000 users.

Last week, Canva hit 150 million monthly active users, according to an internal investor deck viewed by The Information—a 50% jump over the 100 million MAUs it reported last October.

Designers around the globe are making money selling the products they create with Canva. With Canva you can design print products such as wall art for your Etsy store, or digital products like design templates, e-books, and calendars for your website.

Is Canva a unicorn? ›

Unicorn-Entrepreneur Melanie Perkins co-founded Canva and built it to a “real” unicorn, i.e., a company with more than $1 billion in valuation and sales, rather than just valuation like a VC-unicorns.

Canva is a worldwide design company that has the power to create change around the world for the better. They spoke up for Ukraine, but now they choose to remain silent about the Palestinian Genocide, an ongoing atrocity that needs the attention of the public.

Canva founder rejected more than 100 times | Martin Roll posted on the topic | LinkedIn.

Fusion Books allowed students to design and print their school yearbooks. While running Fusion Books, Perkins and Obrecht had the idea to create an online tool to simplify the design process for a broader audience. In 2012, they teamed up with Cameron Adams and launched Canva.

Perkins was just 19 when she was first struck by the idea. It was 2006 and she and Obrecht were studying at university in Perth. The teen would earn a little income on the side by teaching other students design programs.

Canva's Content License Agreement does not allow you to use Free or Pro Content to design and sell your own stock content (e.g. clipart files). If you want to sell stock content, you need to create your own designs from scratch.

In short, it looked generic, mediocre, too 'templatesy. ' It looked as if when a legit Graphic Designer sees it, they'll start thinking, “Is this the type of design that's supposed to replace my hard work?” And I'll understand why they'll begin hating on Canva right away.

Another drawback of Canva is that it does not offer the same level of editing tools and features that professional graphic design software does. For instance, Canva does not have tools for layering, masking, blending, cropping, or transforming your images and graphics.

Ensure that your internet connection is stable. Try resetting it, if possible. Check if your device or browser meets Canva's minimum technical requirements. Make sure that your design has a maximum of 50 videos/GIFs, and with a maximum total of 300 elements.