Canva targets business teams, takes a swipe at Google with new visual worksuite tools

Australian graphic design powerhouse Canva has unveiled its new ‘visual worksuite’, targeting workplaces locked into competing Google and Microsoft ecosystems with a range of new collaborative document creation, video editing and web design tools.

Co-founders Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams formally launched the new Canva offering on Wednesday in Sydney, saying its fresh products will upgrade how businesses share ideas and compete for customer attention.

“Just as new technologies have shaped the way we communicate in the past, we’re now in the midst of a rapidly accelerating visual revolution,” Obrecht told guests assembled at Hordern Pavilion.

At the core of Canva’s new visual product suite is Canva Docs, a real-time and collaborative document editor which taps into Canva’s presentation and data visualisation tools.

The product will allow teams to embed elements from Canva’s expansive design library, including graphs, charts, and diagrams, powered by Flourish, the UK-based data visualisation firm Canva acquired early this year.

Teams can also turn automatically documents into presentations in a handful of clicks, Canva says. An additional whiteboard tool will allow teams to share ideas while tapping into the same graphic assets available elsewhere in Canva.

For teams and individuals reliant on the platform for social media outreach, the company has also added one-touch background removal for videos, a move it says will help users create cleaner, simpler posts.

And, in a clear challenge to website design tools like WordPress and Wix, the new product offering includes a website design tool allowing users to create digital front pages from a growing collection of customisable templates.

Users can launch free and paid custom URLs from within Canva, the company says, and access visitor data through a built-in analytics feature, while the new products will roll out to all free and paying users and teams.

But the product launch is clearly aimed at driving adoption among paying business groups, beyond the 4.7 million teams and 1800 Fortune 500 companies worldwide which already pay for Canva’s digital design tools.

The decision to step into Google and Microsoft’s territory with Canva Docs, and the web design space peppered with competitors like WordPress and Wix, also speaks to Canva’s goal of eventually becoming one of the world’s most valuable enterprises.

As one of Australia’s most valuable privately held companies, most recently valued in the vicinity of $32 billion, Canva has already entered the startup stratosphere.

Nevertheless, Perkins peppered the product launch celebrations with her long-held refrain the company is 1% of the way through its journey, suggesting the company sees its new visual worksuite as the start of Canva’s battle for global market dominance.