Australia’s Richest Woman Under 40 Is A Total BAMF


Melanie Perkins might not be a household name, but she sure as hell should be. 
She’s one of the founders of Canva, a huge Aussie start up that allows users to easily engage with graphic design using a free online tool, and create anything from web graphics to posters (rather than use those tacky as sin templates you find in Microsoft Word). 
Canva is her second company. She came up with her first, Fusion Yearbooks, when she was teaching graphic design workshops at uni. They had to use clunky, difficult software, and Perkins told Daily Mail Australia that’s where she drew inspo from:
“It was really complex and difficult, and it would take the entire semester to just learn where the buttons were on the software. At the same time Facebook was taking off, and it was so easy to use and everyone was on it.”

“And I just had this belief that in the future it wasn’t going to be as complex to do design work.”
And that same sentiment helped set in stone the entire belief behind Canva. She began the company with co-founders Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams, and now it’s worth an estimated $165 million and has 5 million users over 179 countries. 
And that’s not all: Woody Harrelson & Owen Wilson just invested a bunch of moolah in her company. They were two of the investors that took part in Canva’s latest $15 million funding round.
So obviously, this means Perkins herself is a financially-fabulous woman. She recently made into the BRW 2015 Young Rich List, which means she’s one of the richest people under 40 in our fair country. She came in at number 41, with a HA-UUUUGE shared wealth of $60 million. And she’s only 28. Which is obviously just completely batshit insane.
And she’s not done yet: “We think we’ve only achieved 1% of what Canva can achieve.”

GAL MEANS SRS BZNS, YA’LL.

YOU GO PERKINS. GET. IT. 
Editor’s note: Technically with a net worth of $78million Erica Baxter is Australia’s richest women under 40 according to BRW. However the BRW Young Rich List includes a disclaimer that it’s meant to exclude those that have inherited their fortune. In our books while it’s not technically an inheritance it’s unfair to compare self-made entrepreneurs with wealth largely generated through marriage/divorce.
via BRW.

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