Graphic design start-up in global expansion

Graphic design business Canva is aggressively rolling out across the globe.

Australian start-up graphic design business Canva has added six new languages to its platform, saying it would be too risky not to internationalise the product.

The project is part of the group’s ambitious global expansion plans, as well as a reaction to demand from its existing user base, which numbers more than 10 million users across 179 countries.

The cloud-based software was previously available in English only, and is now available in German, French, Spanish, Polish, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. The company plans to offer 15 to 20 languages by the end of this year and all major languages by the end of 2017.

About a month ago, the platform did a soft rollout in Spanish, and more than 350,000 users in Spain switched to using the software in Spanish.

Chief executive Melanie Perkins points out that only 0.3 per cent of the three billion internet users globally are using Canva, saying she expects rapid growth from now on in countries where English is not the native language.

“Long term, we definitely want Canva to be in every single person’s homes on the internet,” she said.

Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist Wesley Chan, who led the $US15 million Series A funding round for Canva last year, says one of the biggest risks for the firm would be a competitor offering a similar service to a non-English-speaking market.

“What if someone looks at Canva and says, ‘I can build the Chinese version of this, or the German version of this,’” the managing director of Felicis Ventures said.

“By internationalising, they can remove that possibility.”

Mr Chan was an early Google employee, where he launched Google Analytics in 14 languages, eventually expanding to more than 40.

“Every time we launched a product we had to launch in eight to 10 languages and 30 or more countries and I think that contributed massively to Google’s success,” he said.

“It doesn’t require that much work other than getting it translated and making sure the speed was fast no matter where you were — it’s not like we had to rebuild a different version of Google.”

Mr Chan takes the view that Australian start-ups need to expand globally, given the comparatively small size of the Australian market, but says technology companies can scale well without having to rebuild their product each time.

While working on translating the service, Canva has hired a Spanish speaker in its support team and also has a program that translates emails from users.

The group has also been working on visual translation, making sure that layouts are available not just for Halloween parties but also for Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, that templates offer enough room for long German words and that the available fonts meet the needs of Asian languages.

“There’s definitely some universal language around design but at the same time it’s very much culturally influenced. So the amount of white space that makes a good design differs between markets and the styles that are trendy differ,” Ms Perkins said.

“What looks good in one market doesn’t necessarily work in another.”

But with native English speakers only making up a minority of internet users, the start-up sees the translation efforts as a strategic move.

“The biggest risk would be to be ignoring most of the internet population,” she said.