AI Unicorns: Canva Expands to Website Builder Market

According to a recent report, the global computer graphics market is projected to grow at 9% CAGR to reach $35.1 billion by 2030. Australia-based Canva is a big player in the industry that has seen strong growth in the past few years.

Canva’s History

The idea behind Canva came to co-founder Melanie Perkins when she was teaching students how to use programs such as iDesign and Photoshop in 2007. She realized that these programs were neither easy to learn nor easy to use. She wanted to build an online tool that could help create school yearbooks. In 2012, she partnered with co-founder Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams to set up Canva in 2013 to meet this vision.

Today, Canva has become a well-known online design and visual communication platform with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere. It has over 130 million monthly users spread in 190 countries, who have created over 15 billion designs. The users have access to more than 120 million pre-made design elements to help them with their creative output. Canva allows both individuals and organizations to design and publish anything with a simple drag and drop technology. Users have access to a stock of pictures and templates that makes the designing process simple and intuitive.

Canva’s AI Offerings

Canva has also embraced AI within its offerings. In 2022, it launched its AI-powered image-generating app called Magic Media. Magic Media lets users translate their text into images, videos, and graphics. Within a year of the launch of Magic Media, Canva saw more than 290 million images being created and applied to several practical use cases including social media posts, presentations, business flyers, and even logos. The service has been particularly helpful to small business owners who don’t have a big marketing team along with artists and students who don’t have access to expensive graphic designing tools.

Earlier this year, Canva also ventured into the $1.7 billion website builder market to address the demand for more visual content and to provide new ways to present information. Canva Websites brings its easy UI to website design process to allows users to quickly build and launch a free one-page website. Users will need to connect a custom domain, or use a free one that Canva offers, or even purchase a domain from Canva. The offering is geared toward businesses or individuals who want to create an informational web-page and do not have sales tools to help them generate revenues.

Canva is not the only player in the field. Squarespace and Wix are leading players in the market. Wix ended last year with $1.56 billion revenues. Paid plans for Squarespace and Wix start at around $16 per month. However, Canva is competing with them by offering a free plan and very simplified offerings.

Canva’s Financials

Canva earns revenues through a two-tiered pricing model. The first is geared toward individuals, and the other, known as Canva for Teams, is focused on organizations. Canva for Teams allows users to exchange visual assets via shared folders and gives them more control of the design to allow for the designs to adhere to a company’s internal best practices. Pricing plans range from free with limited features for individuals to $30 per month for the Teams version.

Canva remains privately held and does not report detailed financials. Reports suggest that it is generating annualized revenues of $1.7 billion and is profitable. It has raised $770 million in funding so far through 14 funding rounds. Its investors include T. Rowe Price, Franklin Templeton, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer, Blackbird, Felicis Ventures, AirTree, Skip Capital and Matrix Partners.

Its last round of funding was held in 2021 when it raised $200 million at a valuation of $40 billion. Valuations have fallen since due to economic conditions and market corrections. The company is looking to hold a secondary stock sale of stock worth $1 billion to its employees and shareholders at a revised valuation of $26 billion.

Photo Credit: oscarkari from Pixabay

This segment is a part in the series : AI Unicorns