I saw a thread this week about how there was not enough talk about @canva + @MelanieCanva...let's change that! Canva just announced they raised $200M (valued @ $40B)- a long way from starting w/no business experience + getting rejected by 100+ investors🧵

1/ Melanie Perkins was born in Perth, Australia & is one of the youngest CEOs of a $1B+ tech start-up. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she was of Malaysian + Filipino + Sri Lankan descent! #asianpride
2/ 2007: Melanie used to tutor her college students on how to use design programs such as Photoshop & InDesign but most of them struggled. That's when she realized the need for online + collaborative + easy-to-use design platform.
3/ From her mom's living room, Melanie + partner (now hubby!) Cliff Obrecht hired freelancers to build a Flash website for their idea, Fusion Books, where students could collaborate in designing their yearbooks.
4/ 2011: Melanie spotted an opportunity for venture funding when Bill Tai, who had backed TweetDeck and Zoom, came to Perth for kitesurfing. They ambushed Tai with a pitch for what they called the "Canvas Chef" in a dinner that he hosted but left without any capital.
5/ Melanie started learning to kitesurf and became a frequent visitor to MaiTai, Tai's unique retreat for investors. With the help of Google Maps co-founder, Lars Rasmussen, she met Cameron Adams, an ex-Googler who became their co-founder.
6/ They raised $3M seed including a matching grant from the Australian gov't to keep the company in their home country.
7/ Canva was first launched in August 2013 to select tech blogs and users. When it was made publicly available, it gained ~50,000 users in the 1st month.
8/ 2014: Canva raised another $3M from Thiel’s Founders Fund and Shasta Ventures. ~ 600,000 users & 3.5M designs made on their site.

2017: The company announced that it had already gained a $1.86M net profit after only launching five years earlier.
9/ In another round of funding in 2019, they raised $70M from General Catalyst and other investment companies and another $85M a few months later. Company's valuation rose to $2.5B.
10/ As of now, @canva has more than 60M monthly active users across 190 countries, expecting to exceed $1B in annualized revenue by the end of 2021 & double their workforce in the next year (females make up 42% of workforce). Go @MelanieCanva! #girlcrush

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Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


Were "golden tickets" inside the envelopes??


Are these "golden tickets" going to lead to their ultimate undoing?

Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.