Canva’s Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht among top 10 Australia’s richest — above big names like Stokes, Palmer & Packer

The Sydney billionaires are the youngest in the top 10 on The List – but are also set to be among Australia’s biggest philanthropists.

Canva co-founders Cameron Adams, left, with married couple Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins, who are now among the nation’s top billionaires

Thirty-somethings Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht have vaulted into the top ranks of the wealthiest Australians, with their combined wealth of $16.4bn putting them above the likes of Clive Palmer, Kerry Stokes, Lindsay Fox and James Packer.

Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht, aged 34 and 35 respectively, are inside the top 10 of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 with their graphic design start-up Canva now the most valuable private software company in the world after a fundraising round pegged its worth at $US40bn ($54bn).

Incredibly, it means Canva, which was only formed in 2012, is now worth more than corporate giants such as Woolworths, Telstra, Rio Tinto and Coles and would be a top 10 ASX company.

But in a twist, Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht – who married earlier this year – have pledged to give most of their vast wealth away.

“Billions upon billions of dollars is more than anyone needs in their entire lifetime, by a longshot,” Ms Perkins said on Wednesday, announcing Canva’s new valuation after a $200m raising from existing and new investors.

She and Mr Obrecht said they intend to use their 30 per cent stake in the business to potentially give away tens of billions via their Canva Foundation, though for now it is unclear exactly how that will happen given they stressed they have no immediate plans to float Canva on a stock exchange in Australia or elsewhere.

“It has felt strange when people refer to us as ‘billionaires’ as it has never felt like our money, we’ve always felt that we’re purely custodians of it,” Ms Perkins said.

“It has long been our intention to give the wealth away, and we have been thinking long and hard about the best way to start that journey.”

What is certain, though, is just how quickly Canva has grown in value in such a short period. Only five months ago, Canva was valued at $20bn following its last funding round. In June last year, it was worth about $8bn after a previous fundraising process.

Seek co-founder Paul Bassat, an early investor in Canva via his Square Peg Capital venture capital firm, said: “This is one of the most extraordinary software businesses in the world, home grown in Australia.”

With a combined wealth of $16.4bn from their Canva stake, Ms Perkins and Mr Obrecht will now rank seventh on The List, behind only billionaires such as Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and fellow tech sensations Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar of Atlassian.

Incredibly, the Canva duo have increased their paper fortune by about $14bn since The List’s 2021 edition was published in late March.

Then, the pair were ranked 41st on The List with a combined wealth of $2.5bn.

Their fellow co-founder Cameron Adams now has a stake in the business worth $4.4bn, putting his paper fortune above the likes of Mr Packer and other ¬famous billionaires.

As an example of how Canva wants to be different from other more traditional companies, Mr Adams introduced Wednesday’s online announcement about his firm’s latest capital raising with his own DJ set.

While Ms Perkins has long expressed an ambition to make Canva one of the most valuable companies of its kind, she and Mr Obrecht are also committed to using their cash for progressive and other causes.

The pair will start by giving about $10m to GiveDirectly for vulnerable families in Africa, an amount that would also mean they are among the top 25 philanthropists in Australia.

Ms Perkins said the move was proof of her intentions from the very beginning of her firm, and that an increasing number of young start-up founders have similar mentalities.

“It is something that we have wanted to do since the early days of Canva, to build a really valuable company and to use that equity to do good things in the world,” she said.

“We truly believe that what is good for business is also good for humanity, and we think we are seeing a whole new breed of companies that are really bringing that to the fore.”

The daughter of an Australian-born teacher and a Malaysian engineer of Filipino and Sri Lankan heritage, Ms Perkins started her first business at the age of 15 from her mother’s living room, creating handmade scarfs to sell at shops and markets in Perth.

Then, at the University of Western Australia, where she taught computer design as part of her communications and commerce studies, she confronted the difficult reality of navigating graphic design software, and Canva took off with Mr Obrecht and later Mr Adams.

Canva now has more than 30 million monthly active users across at least 190 countries using more than 100 languages and is set to reach the $1bn annual revenue mark for the first time by December.

The firm said it had been generating positive free cashflow for at least four years and that the latest $US200m ($274m) raising would be used to turbocharge its growth, predicting it would likely double its 2000-strong workforce within about 12 months.

But Mr Obrecht was adamant Canva was still a long way off an initial public offering which would crystallise their wealth, insisting it was able to raise more money from investors and also achieve liquidity for its shareholding via the private capital markets for the foreseeable future.

Canva said it was seeking the best way to structure the placing of their founders’ 30 per cent stake into the Canva Foundation, which will be used to fight inequality and poverty around the world, and support education and environmental causes.

“People want to work for companies that are doing good in the world and … not just for some corporate benefit or making some particular person rich,” Mr Obrecht said. “It is about giving back to the world and having a net positive impact.

Originally published as Canva’s Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht among top 10 Australia’s richest — above big names like Stokes, Palmer & Packer