A young teacher from Perth got rejected by more than 100 investors. Today she runs one of the most valuable private software companies in the world. Her name is Melanie Perkins, and the company is Canva.
Where it started
Perkins was teaching design at the University of Western Australia when she noticed students struggling with software that took ages to learn. So with Cliff Obrecht, her partner and later cofounder, she started a yearbook design business called Fusion Books out of her mum’s living room in Perth. It grew into Australia’s biggest yearbook publisher.
The hard part
To raise money for the bigger version, she went to San Francisco and lived with her brother for months while pitching. She pitched more than 100 venture capitalists, and they all said no. The objections were familiar: design tools were niche, the big incumbents had it covered, and a company from Perth couldn’t compete with Silicon Valley.
The kitesurfing story
She even learned to kitesurf to get time with investor Bill Tai. Tai backed Canva, and introduced her to people who became early investors too.
Where it is now
Canva has more than 220 million monthly users, as reported, and was valued at about US$42B in a 2025 share sale. It is now based in Sydney, but the story starts in Perth.
My read
The rejection number gets all the attention, but the bit I like is the yearbook business. She proved people would pay for simple design tools before she ever pitched a VC. That proof is what kept her going through a hundred nos.