Amid the smiles, costumes and bright lights of Canva’s first foray into big tech company product launches last week, the company’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Cliff Obrecht, had a bone to pick with The Australian Financial Review, and its media colleagues, who have seized on stories of its tumbling valuation over the past six months.

Obrecht was doing interviews ahead of launching Canva’s new workplace tools designed to take on the likes of Microsoft and Google and their stranglehold on collaborative working software.