From the beginning, we had this Venn diagram: On one side there's creativity, and on the other side there's productivity. And as you might guess, right in the middle is Canva. We really 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 found it to be the best spot to — it was a big gap in the market that we saw early on, and that's where we're continuing to invest very heavily.
How are you? How does Canva use Canva?
Very broadly for everything, in fact. Our engineers do their engineering docs in Canva, we do all-hands, I do all my product mock-ups in it. I've used it for decision decks and vision decks and onboarding and hiring and recruiting – to name a few, we're using Canva pretty extensively for that.
Your highest valuation in 2021 was $40 billion. A year later, it was reduced to $26 billion. What happened?
I think it was just a macro change in the market as a whole. During that time, Canva has continued to grow rapidly in terms of both revenue and active users. We have been profitable for seven years, even though the market [switched to caring] As for more about profitability, luckily we were already on that trend. Over time markets will value different things, and markets will be frothy and then not frothy. We are always concerned about building a strong, lasting company with good foundations that serves our community. So it is not a matter of particular concern what is happening in the market.
You've pledged to give 30 percent of Canva – the majority of your and Obrecht's equity – to do good in the world. What does that mean to you?
It seems completely absurd that we have the prosperity that we do around the world, and there are people who still don't have their basic human needs met. The first step we've taken is a partnership 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 the empowerment that enables them to spend money on their community, on their family, on their basic human needs – sending their kids to school, getting a roof over their heads. We still have a long way to go, but we're really excited that we've started that process.
Your goal is to reach 1 billion users. What is the plan to reach there?
When we set this as a goal several years ago, it seemed completely ridiculous, but over the years, it's becoming less ridiculous. We need one in five internet users in every country to reach one billion. Now in the Philippines it is one in six Internet users, and in Australia it is one in eight Internet users. In Spain, it is one in 11. In the United States, it is one in 12. So now at 200 million, we're a fifth towards the one billion number, and if we can continue to grow as fast as we have, we're hopeful that we'll get there.
Any plans for IPO?
It's definitely something on the horizon.
This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 edition of WIRED UK.