Melanie Perkins is the co-founder and CEO of Canva. Since launching the visual-communications platform in 2012, users in 190 countries have created over 5 billion designs on Canva.
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1987
Born (Australia)
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2001
Starts first business selling scarves at age 14
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2007
Co-founds Fusion Books
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2012
Launches Canva
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2019
Silicon Valley investors value Canva at US$3.2 billion
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2021
Inducted into the Global Business Hall of Fame
In December 2020, a $71 million round led by investors including Dragoneer and T. Rowe Price, gave the company a valuation of US $15 billion. The company used the additional funding to expand the team, with more than 1,500 employees located in offices across Sydney, Beijing, Austin, and Manila.
Melanie has had an entrepreneurial drive from her youth. She started her first business at the age of fourteen by selling handmade scarves at shops and markets throughout Perth. Today, Melanie is one of Australia’s most successful tech entrepreneurs and one of the world’s youngest female tech unicorn founders.
The Canva journey began in 2007, when Melanie was studying at the University of Western Australia. She taught students how to use programs such as InDesign and Photoshop—programs that people found hard to learn and even harder to use. “People would have to spend an entire semester learning where the buttons were, and that seemed completely ridiculous,” Perkins told CNBC Make It. “I thought that, in the future, it was all going to be online and collaborative and much, much simpler than these really hard tools.”
After coming up with an idea for an online tool to create school yearbooks, Melanie and Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht took out a loan and brought in a tech team to build Fusion Books. Melanie and Cliff launched a website for students to “collaborate and design their profile pages and articles.” The pair would then print the yearbooks and deliver them to schools across Australia. They did not really know what they were in for but thankfully they learned a lot—including how to sell, how to recruit, and how to build a business. For Perkins, it was just the first step in what she called her “crazy, big dream” for a one-stop-shop design site.
From CEO Magazine
But Melanie and Cliff believed their technology had applications beyond the yearbook market, and they knew they had to pursue their vision which led them to found Canva next.
Today, Canva gives consumers the tools to create professional, creative designs for individuals, small and medium-sized businesses, and entrepreneurs.
“If you are determined and you want it, you can just go for it. It might take a very long time and it might be challenging but the equalitarian nature of that is what’s so exciting.”
A Global Force for Good
Gender equality is a passion for Melanie, who champions and speaks on women’s issues. Canva instituted policies to eliminate gender bias in the hiring process, with a high percentage of staff identifying as female, unusual for the tech industry.
Creating work opportunities and skills for anyone and driving creative and economic activity and participation are key drivers behind Canva’s strategy and ethos. Small business owners can do more work themselves—without expertise in Adobe’s design products—and young designers can start their careers sooner, without having to spend years learning the more complex mainstream software.