Melanie Perkins, the 35-year-old Australian founder of Canva, had a vision to democratize design and make it accessible to all. But her journey was not without challenges. Despite having zero Silicon Valley connections, Perkins pitched her idea to 100 venture capitalists and was turned down every time. But she did not give up.
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Despite repeatedly facing rejection, Perkins persisted in her vision, knowing that everyone should have the ability to design, regardless of their socioeconomic status or skills and experience.
Fast forward to today, and Canva is now valued at $26 billion, making it the world’s most valuable startup founded and led by a woman. The platform has gone from strength to strength, with millions of users worldwide creating everything from social media graphics to professional presentations.
The concept of Canva was born in 2007, when Perkins was teaching graphic design to students at a university in Perth, Australia. Frustrated with the complexity and expense of graphic design software, she sought to create an online platform that would make graphic designing extremely simple for everyone. Together with her co-founder and to-be spouse Cliff Obrecht, she started an online school yearbook design business, Fusion Books, to test her idea.
Fusion Books was a resounding success and the first step toward Perkins realizing her dream of creating a completely integrated platform for designers — but she had no funding.
Her initial efforts were disheartening until she met legendary venture capitalist Bill Tai, who invited her to San Francisco to pitch her idea. Perkins seized the opportunity to connect with Tai, who also happened to be an avid kitesurfer. Tai frequently hosted events that brought together like-minded investors and kitesurfers at MaiTai, one of his retreats, and Perkins used the sport to build connections in the investment world.
Impressing Tai wasn’t an easy feat, and Perkins had to overcome her fear of the deep sea before finally getting a seat at the funding table.
“It was like, risk: serious damage; reward: start company,” Perkins recalls of the experience. As an entrepreneur, she adds, “If you get your foot in the door just a tiny bit, you have to kind of wedge it all the way in.”
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Canva soon attracted the attention of investors thanks to Perkins's networking and persuasion skills. As investments started flowing in, Perkins realized it was time to launch Phase 2 of her dream project — putting a team together to make it a reality.
Today Canva has over 2,000 employees and is expanding into new markets in China, Dubai and the Philippines. Its success can be attributed to Perkins's unwavering determination to create a platform that empowers everyone to showcase their creativity, regardless of their design experience.
Now, the design platform is taking on the big players in the design industry, including Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. With the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, Canva is upping the ante and looking to attract even more users. The new AI tools will allow designers to automate repetitive tasks, such as resizing images and selecting fonts, freeing up more time for the creative process.
Venture Funding Inclusivity
It’s no secret that venture capital funding has an inclusivity problem. On average, 80% of all venture capital funding goes to white men. This disincentivizes innovation and has created constraints on those communities that might struggle to scale businesses due to a lack of funding. One exception to this is equity crowdfunding, which has seen substantially more proportional rates of funding based on representation. Platforms like StartEngine and Wefunder allow anyone to invest in startups, including investing in StartEngine itself. This means businesses can raise from their communities and thus aren’t constrained to receiving investments exclusively from venture capital.
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