Melanie Perkins Net worth Forbes 2021

Melanie Perkins Net worth

Melanie Perkins has a combined estimated net worth of $2.5 billion USD (3.43 billion $AU). The Australian Entrepreneurs is the CEO and founder of Canva which has a valuation of $15 Billion according to Forbes.

Name	Melanie Perkins
Net worth	$2.5 billion USD (3.43 billion $AU)
Age	34 years (2021)
Husband	Cliff Obrecht
Date of Birth	1987
Ethnicity/Nationality	Australian with Malay, Sri Lankan and Filipino descent
Canva Valuation	$15 Billion
Profession	CEO of Canva
Education	University of Western Australia

Melanie Perkins Biography

Melanie Perkins (born 1987) is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Canva, an Australian digital company.

Perkins is one of the youngest female CEOs of a tech start-up with a market capitalization of more than A$1 billion. Perkins is Australia’s second richest woman as of 2021.

Melanie Perkins Early Life and Background

Melanie Perkins was born in the Australian city of Perth. She is the daughter of a Malaysian engineer of Filipino and Sri Lankan ancestry and an Australian-born teacher.

Melanie Perkins Education

She went to Sacred Heart College, a secondary school in the Sorrento neighborhood of Perth’s northwestern suburbs.

She launched her first company at the age of fourteen, selling handcrafted scarves at shops and markets all throughout Perth.

She attributes her entrepreneurial drive to this experience, saying, “She never forgot the independence and pleasure of creating a business.”

Perkins went to the University of Western Australia after high school, specializing in communications, psychology, and commerce.

Perkins was also a private tutor for graphic design students at the time. She realized how difficult it was for pupils to learn creative software like Adobe Photoshop.

Perkins saw a business opportunity in making the design process more efficient.

Melanie Perkins Career

Her concept was to create a design platform that didn’t require any technical knowledge. She dropped out of university at the age of 19 to work for Obrecht’s first company, Fusion Books.

Perkins and Cliff Obrecht created Fusion Books in 2007.

Fusion Books allowed students to create their own school yearbooks with the help of a simple drag-and-drop tool that included a library of design templates that could be customized with photos, illustrations, and fonts.

Perkins had intended to create software that would make the entire design process easier, but she decided against it because of the competition from large companies and her lack of resources.

Obrecht began cold calling schools in Perkins’ mother’s living room in an attempt to gain new clients for Fusion Book.

Their parents were frequently involved in the printing of the yearbooks. Fusion Books expanded into France and New Zealand over the course of five years, becoming Australia’s largest yearbook publisher.

Bill Tai, a well-known investor, came to Perth in 2011 to judge a start-up competition. Over dinner, Perkins and Obrecht presented Tai with the original Canva concept.

They didn’t get any money, but they became regulars at Tai’s investor and startup founder gatherings. Perkins and Obrecht met Lars Rasmussen, co-founder of Google Maps, at one of these gatherings in Silicon Valley.

He expressed interest in the concept but advised the founders to ‘put everything on hold’ until they found the right tech team.

Rasmussen then became the company’s tech advisor, introducing Perkins and Obrecht to Cameron Adams, a former Google employee with the necessary technical knowledge.

Adams was in Silicon Valley trying to raise funds for his start-up when Perkins sent him another email asking if he wanted to join the company. Adams was initially not interested in joining the company because he was starting his own company called fluent.io. Adams was in Silicon Valley trying to raise funds for his start-up when Perkins sent him another email asking if he wanted to join the company. He agreed to join Canva after receiving that email, becoming the company’s third founder and chief product officer.

Perkins is the CEO of one of the few profitable “unicorn” start-ups.

Melanie Perkins Husband

Melanie Perkins Husband is Cliff Obrecht. Cliff Obrecht proposed to Perkins in Cappadocia, Turkey’s backpacker-friendly region, in 2019. The price of the engagement ring was $30.
Perkins and Obrecht married on Rottnest Island in January 2021.

Perkins and Obrecht’s combined net worth to be A$7.98 billion, making them the tenth wealthiest Australians.