Mary Meeker's New Fund Chooses Australian Startup for Debut Deal

(Bloomberg) -- Mary Meeker, a fixture of Silicon Valley for her internet trends report, has chosen an Australian online design platform for the first investment by her new venture capital firm.

Meeker’s Bond Capital along with General Catalyst joined a $70 million funding round for Canva. The financing, also backed by existing investors Felicis Ventures and Blackbird Capital, more than doubles the Sydney-based startup’s valuation to $2.5 billion, it said in a statement.

Bond Capital has raised $1.25 billion for VC investments in Meeker’s first fund since parting ways with Kleiner Perkins in September after eight years as a partner. Canva, which has apps that help advertisers and companies create banners, logos and presentations, turned profitable in 2017 and has more than 500,000 paying subscribers, including Yelp and Hubspot.

“The Canva team is building its product around three trends – content, community and commerce – similar to what we’ve been observing in some of the world’s fastest growing companies,” Meeker said in the statement.

The new money will be used to bolster Canva’s position in serving enterprises as it doubles down on its presentation products, said Chief Executive Officer Melanie Perkins. Last year, the firm raised $40 million at a valuation of $1 billion.

Meeker first rose to prominence more than two decades ago for her work as a tech analyst at Morgan Stanley during the dot-com boom. Her annual presentations on internet industry for Kleiner Perkins were known for covering everything from trends in mobile and what consumers are adopting to how young people use technology.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yoolim Lee in Singapore at yoolim@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edwin Chan at echan273@bloomberg.net, Robert Fenner

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