Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams founded Canva in Sydney in 2013.
Before Canva, Perkins and Obrecht created Fusion Books, an online yearbook-design business aimed at schools. That experience showed Perkins how difficult traditional design software could be for ordinary users. Canva applied a simpler, browser-based approach that let people create graphics using templates and drag-and-drop tools.
Cameron Adams joined as a co-founder and chief product officer, bringing software and design expertise. Canva expanded from presentations and social-media graphics into documents, whiteboards, websites, video and business collaboration.
A common mix-up is identifying Canva as a United States startup because of its large American market and San Francisco presence. Its founding story began in Australia, and Sydney remains central to its corporate history. The company’s later international expansion does not change its Australian origin.