Startup Write-Up: Canva

Back in 2013, Canva CEO Melanie Perkins realized she didn’t understand why great design could only be achieved with complex software like Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. Adobe was the clear market leader in creative software, and Melanie set out to make high-quality design much more accessible by building Canva.

As everyone spends more and more of their time online, the ability to design the digital screens and images people interact with has become top-of-mind for everyone. That change in behavior has led to a $41 billion market for a “wider audience – like social media influencers, small business owners and marketing executives – [who] are looking for tools to more quickly create and share content on [social] platforms.”

While Adobe has positioned itself as a leader in building software for professional designers, Canva set out to position its product as the go-to solution for everybody else. Adobe, the 40-year old multi-billion dollar juggernaut, took quite a while to respond to Canva, failing to release a competitive product until late 2021 when they launched Adobe Express as Canva was poised to pass $1 billion in revenue during 2022.