Canva also made a slew of other announcements, including a new U.S. office
Sydney-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) graphic design platform Canva has raised funding of $60 million in a round that has doubled its valuation to $6 billion, a statement from Canva has announced.
Australian venture company Blackbird and Sequoia China led the round, with participation from existing investors and U.S.-based venture capital firms Bond, Felicis and General Catalyst, according to reports.
As a SaaS platform, Canva servitizes design, allowing users to create a range of graphics from a pool of templates that include social media, animations, print designs and video. The service acts as an alternative to conventional designing software such as Adobe Photoshop, and is available both as a web and phone app.
The company also announced new collaborative features designed for the workplace that it will be rolling out soon. This includes interactive Canva Talking Presentations, desktop-native app Canva for Desktop, and collaborative canvas space Canva Brainstorms.
Further, according to the statement, the company is looking at acquisition opportunities to fuel international growth, and will be pumping funds into a new Austin, Texas office. Its U.S. operations are focused at providing strategic support for B2B clients, and will be ushered in at Canva’s first online enterprise conference Elevate 2020.
With this round, the 2012-founded company has raised over $300 million in funding to date through 12 rounds, including two Series D tranches of $85 million and $70 million each raised last year.
Canva is now valued at $6 billion, a significant jump from a previous $3.2 billion valuation that emerged from the company’s $85 million Series D.
The company attributes its increased valuation to its growing user base – the statement noted that the company adds 30 million users every month. It added that the company has seen “a significant increase in user activity” despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
Canva Co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht said in the statement that this growth was “indicative of the “new normal.”
“Now more than ever, organizations of all sizes are doubling down on building a reliable remote workplace, and are turning to modern productivity platforms like Canva to ensure they remain flexible and scalable,” he continued.
Canva is not the only company to see significantly improved company performance. Several SaaS companies have been reporting a surge in adoption since the onset of the pandemic and implementation of lockdown measures worldwide, and expect this to subside once offline modes of work are reopened.
The company, which uses a freemium model to monetize, reported over 50% growth in design creation and sharing on the platform since the start of the Covid-19 global health emergency, according to the statement.
The company launched its on-demand print delivery service Canva Print in Southeast Asia last year through a partnership with Singapore-based printing company KHL Printing. The service was made available in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Brunei.
The company has also made other strategic deals in the design space in recent times. Earlier this year, it announced a partnership with image discovery platform Pinterest, and in May 2019, acquired stock image sites Pexels and Pixabay.
It had previously acquired Australian presentation platform Zeetings in 2018 for an undisclosed amount.
Several platforms such as Crello, Easil and Snappa compete with Canva in terms of product features, but Canva is the only one of its kind to have made it into the unicorn list.
Header image courtesy of Canva.
