Canva, one of the world’s most valuable all-in-one design platforms, has launched a $50-million fund to invest in app developers who will build on the Canva apps marketplace.
The fund, Canva Developers Innovation Fund, will invest in creative, innovative app developers and help them bring new experiences to the Canva community.
According to the announcement, the fund will be allocated in the form of grants and professional guidance, with a special emphasis on “empowering underrepresented developers” globally.
The fund, Canva’s maiden developers-focused vehicle, was unveiled during the company’s first developer conference, Canva Extend, in San Francisco.
During the event, Canva also introduced its new Canva Developers Platform that allows developers to deliver their apps to the company’s 135 million monthly users.
“We’re enabling developers to distribute their apps and services instantly to millions of people on Canva,” said Anwar Haneef, Head of Ecosystem at Canva. “Our community will benefit from new ways to achieve their goals while providing valuable feedback to developers.”
The Canva Developers Platform also introduces the Canva Apps SDK, a Software Development Kit designed to make app development on Canva seamless.
The company’s decision to take the Canva Apps SDK out of beta and make it publicly available signifies a significant step for the platform. Over the past nine months, it has garnered more than 11,000 developers on the waitlist.
Furthermore, the company unveiled its forthcoming Canva Connect APIs (REST APIs) and showcased the Canva Apps SDK UI library.
Co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins and her team started working on Canva in 2012 and launched the product in 2013. The platform allows users to make posters, social media graphics, presentations, and more by providing presets and templates.
It was valued at $40 billion in September 2021 after raising $200 million in a funding round led by investment management firm T Rowe Price.
In 2019, the Australian company acquired free stock image providers Pexels and Pixabay, giving users creating designs with the platform additional one million images.
The idea for Canva came about in 2007 when Perkins, while studying at the University of Western Australia, started teaching other students how to use InDesign and Photoshop.
Seeing people struggle to learn and use these design software, Perkins and Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht came up with the idea of an online tool to create school yearbooks. They called the business Fusion Books, which is now Australia’s largest school yearbooks publisher.
From Fusion Books, Perkins and Obrecht went on to build Canva.
