Canva is an Australian graphic design platform launched in January 2013 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams. Headquartered in Sydney, the company offers a browser-based, drag-and-drop visual editor with a template library and stock asset marketplace, serving over 100 million monthly users across 190 countries who use it for presentations, social media graphics, marketing collateral, video, and print materials without needing prior design training.
Perkins and Obrecht first built Fusion Books in 2007 — an online yearbook editor — which became the technical and commercial seed for Canva's broader template-driven editor. Cameron Adams, a former Google designer introduced by Maps co-creator Lars Rasmussen, joined as third co-founder and chief product officer. Canva has remained privately held and has scaled to a valuation of roughly $65B by the mid-2020s, expanding from solo creators into team and enterprise workflows that compete with Adobe's design tools at the SMB and prosumer tier. The company has steadily integrated AI features — text-to-image, background removal, copywriting, and brand-aware design assistants — under its Magic Studio umbrella.
Canva is great if you don't want to spend on the full Adobe Suite and you don't need detailed editing — for decks and presentations, it's pretty awesome, and the AI features they've shipped feel like they're integrated in genuinely useful ways.