Credits roll as Canva expands into full video

Predictions of a $150bn valulation could be fast-tracked by Canva’s latest milestone: a groundbreaking video offering.

A sample from the Canva video suite. Two or more people can work on the same scene of the same video simultaneously, as the editing process takes place in the cloud.

Canva has released a fully featured video suite that lets users build marketing and social media videos and even documentaries, making use of more than 600,000 Canva templates. Expanding Canva from a graphics design platform to include full video production using Canva’s huge supply of assets is a major milestone for the company.

Head of product at Canva Robert Kawalsky said the new Video Suite was suitable for everyday video editing, but its real power was when used with Canva’s huge array of assets: images, graphics, animations, prerecorded footage and audio.

It was a powerful yet simple to use scene-based editor with a timeline; Canva users could start creating videos by adapting any of Canva’s 9,850 video templates without technical expertise, he said.

Instagram and TikTok ads and videos, Facebook ads and YouTube sets were obvious uses for Canva videos.

Mr Kawalsky said Canva’s take-up had skyrocketed. “Users have created seven and a half billion designs, which is just unfathomable,” he said.

Release of Canva’s Video Suite comes as the Australian company’s fortunes continue to ride high. Last month it was valued at $54bn with a prediction by venture capitalist Craig Blair that it could be valued at $150bn.

“Canva is now one of the fastest growing companies at its scale, and it’s got high margins,” he said. “It’s got this incredible growth engine, and we can see a path to a $150bn company.”

Mr Kawalsky said two or more people could work on the same scene of the same video simultaneously, as the editing process took place in the cloud. They could start editing their video on a laptop, and then switch to a phone and continue editing.

Users can trim clips, build video on a timeline, add animations and cinematic transitions as you would with any desktop editor. Canva also supplies a desktop editor.

Mr Kawalsky said you could record from your smartphone screen, add graphics and animations, and compile your own video tutorials, work engagement videos, messages to loved ones and even a video CV for a job application. “You could create a video of a yoga class or cooking class,” he said.

Users could add their own images, graphics, video, selfies and screenshots to their Canva video projects.

Mr Kawalsky said the video editor would be available to both free and paying Canva subscribers, although paying users would enjoy extra benefits, such as use of 27,000 royalty free music clips and sound effects courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Users could create videos with multiple audio tracks.

Paying users can also use brand colour and fonts with their videos. A Canva subscription costs $164.99 per year, or $17.99 per month, and covers a team of five users.

The Canva Video Suite accepts MOV, GIF, MP4, MPEG, MKV, and WEBM file format clips up to one Gigabyte and exports MP4 video and GIFs. It can produce video in 4K resolution.

Mr Kawalsky said the new system could produce marketing videos of all formats; videos you create could be used internally within a company, on YouTube, Twitch and TikTok to name some.

“We’ve made video creation as easy as it is to create a presentation,” he said.

“One of Canva’s guiding principles is to make complex things simple, and our new Video Suite will allow everyone to unlock the power of video, whether that’s to market their business, make engaging social posts, or express their creativity.”

Canva has released at least 500 TikTok, YouTube and workplace video templates in the past few months.

The new Video Suite supersedes short form videos that Canva introduced in 2019.

It is available from Wednesday October 13.

Canva co-founders Cameron Adams, Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins. Source: Supplied