Page 78 - Forbes - USA (December 2019)

company matched more of Adobe’s own features
by announcing a video-editing tool and an apps en app, called Adobe Spark, since 2016. While
suite; it’s still working on improvements to its free Canva claims that its tools are used at 50,000
alternative to Microsoft PowerPoint, which has universities and 25,000 nonprofits, Adobe says

already been used to make 80 million presenta- it’s given out 23 million free Spark accounts to
tions. But Canva’s long-term growth prospects de- students and teachers. In December 2017, Ado-
pend on whether corporations will progress from be reunited with Scott Belsky, the entrepreneur
small pockets of fans to accounts reaching thou- whose social media business Behance it acquired
sands of employees. After years of adding more in 2012, to instill a scrappier ethos in its product
76 features to Canva’s suite, Perkins is betting on the teams. “They feel like they’re the underdog be-
opposite approach for corporate America. By of- cause they’re like, ‘We’re not the coolest startup,’ ”

fering limited sets of templates and options, Can- says Belsky, chief product officer of Adobe’s Cre-
S
N va hopes execs will trust more employees to cre- ative Cloud unit.
I
K ate their own content. At Realty Austin, a midsize Then there are the typical startup growing
R

E Texas residential and commercial real-estate firm, pains. Until two years ago, Canva’s tool for edit-
P

a marketing team of six used to create all printed ing its core code was so clunky that only five engi-
E
I handouts and digital assets for its agents to pro- neers could work on it at a time. Much of the com-
N
A mote events like open houses. Now, with Canva, pany’s focus last year was on a complete rewrite of
L
E the company’s 550-plus agents create material for the front-end interface of its app. “We’re growing
M their own listings, faster and on their own time. so fast that things are breaking constantly,” Ob-

— Adobe isn’t sleeping while all this goes down. recht admits. And in May, Canva suffered its big-

E

L It has offered its own freemium, templates-driv- gest test of customer trust to date. Days after Can-
I
F va announced that Meeker’s invest-
O
R ment had valued the company at $2.5
P
billion, a hacker in Europe breached
its systems, downloading 139 million
user names and email addresses before
TECH’S NEW ROLE MODELS Canva could stop the attack.
Stuck in California, Perkins and
CANVA CEO MELANIE PERKINS IS IN ELITE COMPANY, RUNNING ONE OF THE HIGHEST- Obrecht called and texted with At-
VALUED WOMAN-FOUNDED AND -LED STARTUPS, FROM CALIFORNIA TO CHINA.
lassian’s co-CEOs and cofounders
(and Canva investors), Mike Cannon-
Brookes and Scott Farquhar, reach-
ing Farquhar as the billionaire was
on a runway in Peru en route to Ma-
chu Picchu. At their urging, Canva
called the FBI and launched a for- TATARKO: ETHAN PINES; MI: DAVE ZHONG / GETTY IMAGES; PERKINS: HORACIO VILLALOBOS / CORBIS-GETTY IMAGES; WOJCICKI: JOHN SHEARER / GETTY IMAGES; EAGAN: DAVID PAUL MORRIS / BLOOMBERG; GUSTAFSSON: BY DAVID PAUL MORRIS / BLOOMBERG; WEISS: TAYLOR HILL-GETTY IMAGES; CARLSON: JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES. VALUATION ESTIMATES COURTESY OF PITCHBOOK.
mal review; two weeks later, Can-
Houzz VIPKid Canva 23andMe
va announced two-factor authentica-
Valuation Valuation Valuation Valuation tion for all users. Though Perkins says
$4B $3.5B $3.2B $2.5B
Canva’s users responded by rallying
CEO CEO CEO CEO
Adi Tatarko Cindy Mi Melanie Perkins Anne Wojcicki behind the company, it was a warn-
Palo Alto, California Beijing Sydney Sunnyvale, California ing: With better recognition comes a
Founded: 2009 Founded: 2013 Founded: 2012 Founded: 2006
bigger target on your back.
Home design Online language Design DNA

site classes software testing Those close to Perkins are confident
that she can handle the pressure. Guy
Kawasaki started his career as a hype-
man for Steve Jobs, traveling the world
to tout all things Apple in the 1980s.
The former Forbes columnist says he’s
happy to end his career doing the same
for Perkins, investing in Canva and
joining the company as “chief evange-
Darktrace ezCater Glossier Guild Education
list” back in 2014. “More people can
Valuation Valuation Valuation Valuation
$1.61B $1.25B $1.2B $1B use the democratization of design than
Co-CEOs CEO CEO CEO can use a Macintosh,” he says. “You
Nicole Eagan, Stefania Mallett Emily Weiss Rachel Romer don’t have to be in Silicon Valley—you
Poppy Gustafsson Boston New York City Carlson don’t even need to be in America—to
Cambridge, U.K. Founded: 2007 Founded: 2012 Denver
Founded: 2013 Online Skincare and Founded: 2015 be successful. Holy cow.”
Cybersecurity catering beauty products Education benefits

See story, page 41 D E C E M B E R 3 1 , 2 0 1 9