Aussie tech startup Canva has joined very rare company among the ‘unicorns’ – private companies worth at least $US1 billion.
Co-founder of the graphic design app, Melanie Perkins told the ABC that Canva is now worth over $1 billion after scoring new venture capital funding from Blackbird Ventures.
We’ve been together from the start. From their first round which they held open long enough for us to raise our first fund. Today @Canva is worth $1b USD. This is a lifetime achievement & incredibly, just the beginning. Congrats Mel, Cliff, Cam & Canva https://t.co/VI5PEAk9EI
— Blackbird (@blackbirdvc) January 8, 2018
Very recently we just closed a round [of funding], making Canva now a unicorn,” she said. “Which is crazy considering how much we struggled to get things off the ground.”
A quick note here. The ‘value’ of a company in this regard is not necessarily derived from any kind of objective measure – like, for example, how much revenue or profit the company is making – but rather whatever investors say it is worth. This differs from if Canva had listed on the stock market, which would have meant market forces determined its value. This doesn’t mean that it’s not an incredibly valuable company. It clearly is. It’s just how these things are done.
The only other unicorn success story is software company Atlassian, which is listed on the Nasdaq and is valued at more than $11 billion.
Blackbird’s co-founder Rick Baker confirmed the valuation:
I can confirm that the Canva round was at a $US1 billion valuation. It’s a huge milestone for the company, and on the back of being one of the fastest growing software companies.
Canva, in case you’re not across it, is a browser-based platform which lets you whack together nice looking visual content collaboratively without needing to know how to do graphic design. It comes with an inbuilt library of design elements you can purchase, which makes it very monetisable.
We spoke to Creel Price of Investible, the team behind Canva’s first major round of funding on our Founders University podcast. For more insightful chats with Aussie entrepreneurs, subscribe HERE.
