Alex McCurthy
Canva is now one of the world’s most valuable startups after raising $200 million in new funding at a $40 billion valuation.
Canva is popular with bloggers, students and marketers who can select templates and then customize them to make logos, resumes, flyers or even T-shirt designs. Its tools are used by more than 10 million students and teachers, as well as companies including American Airlines Group Inc., Zoom Video Communications Inc., SkyScanner, Intel Corp., Salesforce.com Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc. and Marriott International Inc., according to Perkins. Canva says that it’s on track to surpass $1 billion in annualized revenue by year-end.
In her latest Medium post, Perkins vowed that she and Obrecht would donate the vast majority of their Canva equity. The couple plans to direct its giving through the Canva Foundation, and announced a program with nonprofit GiveDirectly that will distribute $10 million to the poor in Southern Africa.
“It has felt strange when people refer to us as billionaires as it has never felt like our money,” Perkins said in a statement. “We’ve always felt that we’re purely custodians of it. It’s long been our intention to give the wealth away.”
