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company

Canva

Australian graphic design platform with 230+ million users. Valued at ~$49 billion. Co-founders have pledged 80% of equity to philanthropy.

Current Team

CEO

Track Record

On November 3-4, 2026, Canva CEO Melanie Perkins told staff the company would restructure, affecting 1,271 employees (about 22% of its global workforce) through layoffs, role changes, and relocation requests to centralized hubs including Sydney. Perkins called it 'the hardest moment' in the company's 13-year history, citing growth slowing for the first time in a decade after Canva cut its 2026 revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20% in August 2026, and cited new technology changing how people create and use its products. Hybrid staff will be required in-office 2-3 days per week starting January 2027.

Attackers compromised Canny, a customer-feedback platform integrated with Canva's Salesforce environment, gaining unauthorized access to limited enterprise customer information including names, business emails, phone numbers, and business documents such as order forms, invoices, and data protection/master service agreements. Canva said its core product, accounts, passwords, designs, and content were not affected, and it removed Canny's access and notified customers and regulators. Turkiye's Personal Data Protection Authority said the breach affected 424 organizations in the country.

In August 2024, Canva announced a price increase for Teams subscriptions from approximately $120/year to $500/year for a team of five, a 300%+ increase justified by AI features. After significant customer backlash on social media and subscription cancellations, Canva partially reversed the increase in October 2024 with a 'Pricing Promise' that restored legacy pricing for early adopters and committed to 60 days notice for future changes.

Canva offers free access through Canva for Education and Canva for Nonprofits programs, reaching over 100 million teachers and students and 860,000 nonprofit organizations across 190 countries. The total value of product donated exceeded $1 billion, with an annualized value of approximately $1.5 billion. Canva joined Pledge 1% in 2019, committing 1% of profit, equity, product, and employee time to communities.

Through a partnership with GiveDirectly, Canva Foundation donated $50 million USD for unconditional digital cash transfers to people living in extreme poverty in Malawi. The program enabled approximately 84,000 recipients to receive about $550 each. Canva co-founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht pledged 30% of their Canva equity to the Foundation and committed to donating 80% of their personal fortune.

In October 2023, Canva announced a $200 million commitment to pay content creators over three years for AI training royalties. Creators can opt in to have their content used to train proprietary AI models, with opt-out as the default. The Creator Compensation Program ensures creators receive payment when their work contributes to AI development.