From the beginning, we had this Venn diagram: One side is creativity, the other side is productivity. And you guessed it, right in the middle is Canva. We truly believe that people on the productivity side really want to be more creative and people on the creative side want to be more productive. And so we really see that as the sweet spot—that’s the big gap in the market that we saw from the very beginning and that’s where we’re continuing to invest a lot.
How about you? How does Canva use Canva?
Extremely spacious, literally everything. Our engineers do their technical documentation in Canva, we do all the work, I do all my product mockups in there. I’ve used it for decision and vision platforms as well as onboarding, recruiting and hiring—name something, we’re using Canva for it very extensively.
Your peak valuation was $40 billion in 2021. A year later, it dropped to $26 billion. What happened?
I think it’s purely a macro change in the market. During that time, Canva continued to grow rapidly in both revenue and active users. We’ve also been profitable for seven years, so despite the market [switched to caring] more about profitability, fortunately we’ve followed that trend. The market will value things differently over time, and the market will bubble and fizz. We are always interested in building a strong, long-term company with a good foundation to serve our community. Therefore, what is happening in the market is not something to worry about.
You’ve committed 30% of Canva—the majority of your and Obrecht’s equity—to doing good in the world. What does that mean to you?
It seems completely absurd that we have global prosperity and there are people who still don’t have their basic human needs met. The first step we took was to partner with GiveDirectly, where we give money directly to people living in extreme poverty. [Canva has so far donated a total of $30 million to people living in poverty in Malawi.] I love empowering them to be able to spend money on their communities, on their families, on basic human needs – sending their children to school, having a roof over their heads. We have a very long way to go but we are really glad to have started that process.
You aim to reach 1 billion users. What’s the plan to get there?
When we set that goal a few years ago, it seemed completely ridiculous, but over the years it’s become less ridiculous. We need about one in five internet users in every country to reach one billion. Currently in the Philippines, there are one in every six Internet users, and in Australia, this number is one in eight Internet users. In Spain, the ratio is 1 in 11. In the United States, the ratio is 1 in 12. So with 200 million today, we are one-fifth of the way towards one billion, and If we can continue to grow as rapidly as we are now, we hope to get there.
Are there plans for an IPO?
It’s definitely something on the horizon.
This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 edition of WIRED UK.
