WA-founded success story Canva soars to valuation of $65b after kicking off staff share sale

WA-founded tech unicorn Canva has added another $US10 billion ($15.5b) to its valuation after kicking off an oversubscribed staff share sale.

The valuation means it’s now more valuable than corporate giants Woolworths, Telstra and Woodside.

Canva launched the offer at its new valuation of $US42b ($65b) following what co-founder Cliff Obrecht said was an “overwhelming demand from both new and existing investors”.

The offer — which involves employees selling their stock — is being led by Canva’s existing shareholder Fidelity, while JP Morgan Asset Management is among the company’s new backers.

It boosts Canva’s valuation more than 30 per cent from $US32b last year.

In a statement to The West Australian, Mr Obrecht — who is also Canva’s chief operating officer — said the company was now “one of the most widely used platforms on the internet, with more than 240 million people designing with Canva each month”.

“This round has been significantly oversubscribed, which is a huge testament to the incredible work of our team and the impact Canva is having around the world,” he said.

“The overwhelming demand from both new and existing investors is a huge vote of confidence in our momentum and the scale of what still lies ahead.”

He said Canva was generating $US3.3b in annualised revenue, had 27 million paying subscribers, “strong cash reserves, and has been profitable for the last eight years”.

“We really do believe we’re just one per cent of the way there, and that the best is yet to come,” Mr Obrecht said.

Felise Agranoff, portfolio manager for the US Equity Group at JP Morgan Asset Management, said Canva stood out in the design sector and could help create long-term value for investors.

“Identifying companies that can provide investors with pivotal exposure to breakthrough work in AI is an important pillar of our research in active management,” she said.

Canva last April completed the first tranche of a share sale worth nearly $4b, making some of its staff and long-time investors instant millionaires.

Startups like Canva — founded in Perth in 2013 by husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Melanie Perkins and Mr Obrecht, and Cameron Adams — often offer equity as a form of compensation to attract and retain talent during its early days when they can’t afford to pay big salaries.

In the past year, Canva has launched Canva Code, Canva Sheets, as well as a wave of new artificial intelligence tools, with capabilities like cinematic video and powerful design generation.

“Our enterprise business has more than doubled, with multiple $1m+ enterprise deals signed, and we’ve completed key acquisitions like Leonardo.Ai and MagicBrief to accelerate our product innovation,” Canva said.