When will Canva list? Perhaps in the next 12-18 months, but here’s why it will give the ASX the cold shoulder

When will Canva list? This has been a hot question for several years now. Sometimes it has seen like it would only been a matter on months, at other times (i.e. during the Tech Wreck) it seemed the company wouldn’t IPO at all.

Right now (in October 2025), it is anyone’s guess, but it might be in the next year or two. Nonetheless, we thought we’d take a closer look at the company and how its listing may turn out. Spoiler alert: The most valuable tech startup ever founded in Australia will likely bypass its own stock exchange when it lists.

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Who is Canva?

Canva is a graphic design company that was founded in Australia, but is now a global company with users practically everywhere. For those wondering, it is domiciled in the tax haven of Delaware.

It was founded by then Perth residents Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins who wanted to make it easier to design school yearbooks. Because of how much Canva is used and how fast it has grown, the company is hailed as a home-grown tech success story.

Canva was most recently valued in August 2025 at US$42bn/A$65bn as part of a secondary share sale for certain employees (or Canvanauts as the company likes to call them).

It generated US$2.7bn in revenue in 2024, has 220m monthly active users and 21 million paid subscribers. Last time we wrote about Canva (18 months ago), the ‘newest’ valuation was US$26bn (A$40bn). Moreover, it earnt over $1.7bn in revenue, had 16m paying subscribers and 185m monthly users.

You can see that the decline in interest rates has helped its valuation, even if the number of users would have grown anyway. It is used for many purposes, from YouTube clips to audiobooks, from sales presentations to music videos.

It has raised a lot of money, but all private

Canva is a private company but has raised several rounds of funding in the last decade, most famously raising $3m in 2013 after being rejected by over 100 venture capitalists. The most recent round was a Series F Round which raised a mere $8m in May 2024. But it has raised at least US$500bn in external capital across nearly 20 rounds.

It is hoped that the company will go public eventually. Retail investors and institutions that haven’t been able to get a piece of the company want one. Many believe more growth is to come, particularly as AI in graphic design rises.

And although it is rare to find a growth tech company that is profitable, Canva is (well, according to its own standards – more on that shortly). And many of its venture capitalist firms have been keen to sell out. Some have – Blackbird Ventures cashed out some of its stake and reportedly made a return of >2600x the cost base of the shares it first bought (initially it invested $3m). But others are waiting, or at least to have easier liquidity than right now.

Despite rumours of listing, nothing has eventuated as of yet. But there is hope that the wait could long be over, even if not on the ASX.

So when will Canva list?

Perhaps in the next 12-18 months. Why? Well, the ending of the Tech Wreck and re-opening of the IPO window has helped sentiment in the sector. Just look at Life 360’s successful NASDAQ listing and the multiple listings on the ASX, including Guzman y Gomez and Virgin Australia.

Rising interest rates decimated the valuation of tech stocks, public and private alike. A series of tech listings in 2023 (Klaviyo, Instacart and Arm Holdings) led to hope that the market for listings might invigorate – and the door would open to Canva. With the performance of these companies being mixed at best, this did not eventuate.

But there is hope that late 2025 might be it. Don’t take our word for it, take Cliff Obrecht’s word. He said in an appearance on the podcast 20VC that conditions were more appealing. Why? Because now the public markets were valuing companies higher than the private markets.

Where will Canva list?

The answer to that seems to be: Most probably not. If it did, there would be a big gain for the ASX. At its current valuation, it would just make it into the Top 15 ASX stocks. It would be easily the largest technology stock, dwarfing WiseTech (ASX:WTC) and Xero (ASX:XRO), which are only half the size of Canva (i.e. both are ~$25bn).

It seems it will list on the NASDAQ, and in New York only, noting that a dual listing would deliver double the work for the same returns and also that the majority of its investors were based in the US (including Fidelity, JP Morgan and private equitor Quadrant). We would also note that while we do not know if any shares are ‘dual class’ – if so it would be barred from listing on the ASX anyway – at least at this point in time.

But we probably could still have pride in it as a home grown success story. It is unlikely the US IPO of Canva will occur in 2025, but 2026 seems more likely. Canvanauts don’t worry, the company will likely remain headquartered in Sydney with Obrecht saying Sydney was ‘socially cool and a hub for innovation’.

The risks

The thought that Canva will go on a hot run post-listing is not unreasonable. That is what has happened with multiple IPOs in the current tech boom. But there is also the risk the share price will correct.

Also, we mentioned above that the company claimed to be profitable. That is by its own metrics. Accounts filed with the corporate regulator show statutory losses for at least some years it purported to be profitable (for 9 years). In 2022, it lost $222m. Now it is ‘cash flow positive’, and it will claim that the NPAT line doesn’t show the full picture.

Investors also need to ask themselves what AI will mean for Canva. Will there be a need for Canva if AI can just do it all?

Perhaps. Did you know Canva is one of the highest websites referred to by ChatGPT because Canva is optimised to interact with ChatGPT’s language model. The company claims now 5% of images uploaded are from ChatGPT, up from 0.2% just 18 months ago. So ChatGPT’s power to make more images means more users to do further editing with Canva.

Keep watching Canva

Even if you don’t intend to buy it at IPO, keep an eye on it, because if and when it lists, it could be a catalyst for other tech companies to list. It will also finally be the chance to own shares in the company and be part of a major growth story.