By Cara Waters
High-flying design software startup Canva has provided a glimpse into its booming business with documents filed to the corporate regulator showing it doubled its Australian revenue in its most recently reported financial year.
Accounts filed with the the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) show Canva’s consolidated revenue for the company and its subsidiaries in the 2019 was $187.5 million, up 104 per cent from $83.6 million in 2018.
Canva co-founders Cameron Adams, Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins have found the shift in the way people are working has driven platform’s growth through the pandemic.
The company told this masthead earlier this year its total global revenue surpassed $US500 ($650 million) in the year ending March 31, 2021. That implies a more than trebling in revenue in the ensuing 15 months from the latest ASIC filing, a period that encompasses the coronavirus pandemic which in turn led to dramatic changes in the way people work.
Canva this month cemented its status as Australia’s most hyped private company after raising a fresh round of funding that valued its operations at $US15 billion ($19.7 billion).
A spokesman for Canva said the startup was squarely focused on its international, rather than local performance.
“Our ASIC filings are representative of our Australian entity only, for the 12 months ended 31/12/19, and are not indicative of Canva’s global financial performance,” he said. “Canva has been profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis since 2017 and continues to grow at an exponential rate.”
The spokesman added that Canva expected to double its revenue for the financial year ending March 31, 2022 to turn over $US1 billion.
Canva was founded by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams in 2013 and aims to allow anyone to easily design products including greeting cards, posters, websites and presentation slides.
The accounts filed with ASIC are for the period before the coronavirus pandemic hit and list the pandemic under “matters subsequent to the end of the financial year” and note “the rapid development and fluidity of the COVID-19 virus makes it difficult to predict the ultimate financial impact at this stage.”
Earlier this month, Mr Adams told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that the shift in the way people were working through the pandemic had been a boon for Canva.
“A lot of people are working from home, a lot of people working flexibly and that means the tools that they’re using have changed as well,” he said.
“Zoom wasn’t something that a lot of people knew about a year ago but it’s become part of the vernacular now. We’re seeing a lot of people pick up Canva because it does help them collaborate, work with their teams and just communicate better. And that’s a wave that we’re very willing to ride on.”