Through a media event showcasing new market research and platform insights, Canva founders Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams discussed the role the European market will play in the company’s long-term efforts to remain the number one visual communication platform of choice, while also showcasing the company’s strategy for continued growth in the region.

The event concluded what has been an special week for the Canva team, opening it’s first European Campus and hosting it’s very first European media briefing.

Following Canva’s acquisition of UK-based Flourish last year, the company also unveiled a range of new ways Flourish’s world-leading data visualisation technology is being embedded as part of Canva’s core product experience. Flourish’s co-founder Duncan Clark also steps into a new role as Canva’s Europe Lead.

The Canva story

Canva was born out of a desire to integrate the entire design ecosystem into one simple page, and make it accessible to the whole world. The founders faced lots of rejection, but eventually got the ball rolling with a Seed round of investment, which lead to the team being built.

In 2013, Canva was launched to the world, truly democratising design and making it accessible for everyone. Now, Canva empowers its users to design anything, providing them with every ingredient.

What started off in Mel’s living room now has 135 million monthly users and $1.5 billion in annualised revenue.

Mel explained that Canva is extremely fortunate to be in such a uniquely strong position.

The UK and Visual Communication: A Trend Here to Stay

The announcement of Canva's focus on Europe coincides with the rapid increase and impact visual communication is having both in the region and globally. The abundance of visual content, both in personal and professional use cases, is significantly influencing how people are communicating at unprecedented scale, according to research announced by Canva.

To better understand how Brits are engaging with visual content, and its impact on their daily lives, Canva partnered with Ipsos, the global leader in market research, to engage 1,000 participants from the UK on the topic, and learned the following:

Canva’s European Footprint

The European market has played a significant role in Canva’s growth since launching in 2013, and it is home to some of the company’s fastest growing markets. With its sights set on diversifying its product suite, the last few years have seen Canva embark on a journey to expand the platform’s core offering and technical strength through a series of strategic Europe-based acquisitions.

Europe’s thriving startup culture and exceptional talent was recognised early on. Canva has acquired six Europe-based companies to meaningfully accelerate its product and technical expertise. These acquisitions include Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), and SlidesCarnival (2021), Pexels (2019), and Pixabay (2019). They represent 100% of Canva’s acquisitions in the last four years.

“We’re incredibly excited to unveil our first European campus as we continue to deliver on our mission to empower everyone to design. From creating world-class data storytelling features, to building truly magical product experiences through AI, our teams across Europe play a critical role in making incredible things possible for our global community,” said Melanie Perkins, CEO, Canva. “As visual communication increasingly becomes table stakes, we’re looking forward to doubling down on our presence in the region to fuel new levels of impact.”

Canva + Flourish: Data Storytelling Made Easy

From presenting engaging financial results to visualising the impact of climate change, telling stories with data has become a critical part of visual communication across industries. As Canva’s 2023 Visual Economy Report showed, there is significant interest in data storytelling, with 95% of business leaders worldwide using data visualisations at least once a week.

When Canva acquired Flourish, a data storytelling tool, the company set out to add a crucial layer to its visual toolkit. Used by thousands of organisations including the BBC, Sky and Deloitte, Flourish empowers anyone to create beautiful visualisations that bring data to life through interaction and animation. More than a million Flourish users have created more than 15 million visualisations which have collectively been viewed more than 30 billion times.

As of 25th May, Flourish visualisations can be securely and seamlessly embedded in Canva designs. This allows anyone to create interactive and data-driven presentations which incorporate rich visuals such as animated charts, zoom-able maps, explorable diagrams and more.

As part of the event, Canva announced the next generation of interactive visualisations available natively through the Canva editor. The hierarchical treemap and packed circle charts will begin rolling out to Canva’s community of 135 million users.