Rejected by over 100 VCs, these two 19 year old college mates never thought that an idea built in their living room would turn them into multibillionaires just 15 years later.

 

From getting rejected by over 100 VCs, these two 19 year old college mates never thought that an idea built in their living room would turn them into multibillionaires just 15 years later.

Melanie Perkins, founder of Canva got an idea in 2007 while she was teaching design to her peers in the university and realised that those programmers were complex and expensive.

This is when she thought about launching a design product that is simple to use. But her journey to launching the product wasn't an easy one.

Perkins, an Australian woman started the platform with zero Silicon Valley connections and zero investor interest. She made many trips to Silicon Valley only to come back with a #rejection each time.

With the help of their tech advisor, who is the co-founder of Google Maps, they hired a tech co-founder, Cameron Adams.

It took 3 years for Perkins and her husband who is the co-founder of Canva, Cliff Obrecht to get their first investor. And from there on, there was no stopping until recently when Canva's valuation hit rock bottom.

• Jan 2018: Became a unicorn, valued at $1 bn
• May 2019: Valued at $3.2 bn
• June 2020: Valued at $6 bn
• Sep 2021: Valued at $40 bn!!

• July 2022: Valuation dropped down to $25.6 bn, wiping out $14.4 bn of its value!

This #valuation slash came in the backdrop of 'mark-to-market' calculation which Blackbird (a 15% stakeholder in Canva) suggested. It appointed an external valuer & used comparable listed companies as a metric to calculate valuation.

However, Canva has given lives to many funds with great windfalls. For example,

1. Blackbird's initial $3 mn investment from their $29 mn fund is now worth more than $200 mn!!

2. Airtree invested a small amount in Canva from its $60 mn fund in 2014. Now, the value of its #investment alone is worth twice of $60 mn.

Out of 195 countries in the world, Canva today has 75 mn monthly active users across 190 countries, with 5 mn paid users!!

Canva is not just taking over tech giants like Microsoft and Adobe in terms of users but also in #philanthropy efforts. Melanie Perkins decided to give away 30% stake in the business to a foundation that eliminates poverty.

While Melanie has taken conscious efforts to make Canva as one of the few profitable unicorn start-ups, she has also ensured to have 41% #female representation in the company which is higher than the 28% industry average.

When you work for a purpose & not just profit, you always remain on the right path to solve the problem you initially started out for, and get all the support. Agree?