Australia-founded design software company Canva, valued at $26 billion, has announced major software updates to cater to its 185 million monthly users. CEO Melanie Perkins declared it as “the year of work,” signaling the company’s move towards catering to corporate clients. Canva’s expansion beyond its design-focused origins has helped it nearly double its user base in the last 18 months, with many large companies in the U.S. already using its services.
The company’s annual event, held in Los Angeles for the first time and attended by 2 million users online, showcased an overhaul of the software suite aimed at accelerating its adoption in the enterprise sector. Canva’s new features, which include customization tools for organizations, advanced comments systems, and job function-specific templates, are intended to appeal to larger companies by providing a consolidated platform for various design needs.
Notable success stories highlighted by Canva include FedEx, which reduced brand review submissions by 75% using the software, and Expedia, saving 160 hours per week with its tools. The company emphasizes the importance of streamlining workflow processes and increasing productivity for its users by offering tools that simplify design tasks and reduce time spent on creating materials from scratch.
Canva’s evolution into a more comprehensive enterprise software company mirrors the trend seen in other popular productivity tools like Zoom and Slack that have expanded their offerings beyond their original core functionalities. By acquiring Affinity, a tool for professional graphic designers, Canva is directly competing with creative software giant Adobe and aims to offer its services for free to nonprofits, students, and teachers.
The company’s focus on catering to the needs of its largest customers reflects a growing trend in the industry towards consolidating the number of tools used in the workplace. Canva’s ability to adapt to user demands and offer a diverse range of features demonstrates its commitment to becoming a mature enterprise software company that can potentially go public in the future.
CEO Melanie Perkins aims for Canva to reach a billion users each month, emphasizing the company’s goal of providing a versatile platform for visual communication across all aspects of a business. Canva’s updated Enterprise offering marks another milestone in its growth trajectory, as it continues to expand its capabilities to cater to a wider range of job functions and industries.
