Design software publisher Canva is cutting 22% of its workforce, or 1,271 people, amid slowing growth.
The company’s co-founder and CEO, Melanie Perkins, said in a memo to employees that while Canva has evolved so far, it needs to change to deal with slowing growth.
“Over the past thirteen years, we have transformed a dream in a pitch deck into a platform used by hundreds of millions of people. None of this would have been possible without the talent, imagination, and focus of every person who has been a part of this journey. Yet success in our first chapter does not guarantee success in the next. This has been our most challenging year yet, and as we shared earlier this year, our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade,” Perkins wrote.
Canva is revamping its org chart and merging its product, growth, and platform teams to reduce communication friction. The company is also reducing “sub-specialization,” meaning its employees may be asked to take on more responsibilities. The company is also moving toward hybrid working and asking employees to work from an office a few days a week.
The company delivered its own AI models to reduce costs and reliance on third-party models, but it still had to cut its revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20% to accommodate exploding AI costs. It also led Canva’s early investors to cut its valuation to around $35 billion earlier this year.
Canva also faces growing competition from AI startups and general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, whose image generation capabilities allow users to easily create posters and presentations.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
Gn bussni
