Australia-headquartered design software company Canva is opening its first London office, a vote of confidence in the capital at a time when the founders of Revolut and Monzo have questioned the attractiveness of the UK for businesses.
Canva’s UK expansion, its first base in Europe, comes after the software firm acquired London-based data visualisation platform Flourish for an unknown sum last year.
With the London move Duncan Clark, Flourish’s co-founder, becomes Europe lead for Canva.
Melanie Perkins, CEO, Canva, said: “From creating world-class data storytelling features, to building truly magical product experiences through AI, our teams across Europe play a critical role in making incredible things possible for our global community.”
Canva, which launched in 2013, says the UK has double the percentage of small business users than anywhere else.
“As visual communication increasingly becomes table stakes, we’re looking forward to doubling down on our presence in the region to fuel new levels of impact,” said Perkins.
Perkins’ comments come as Revolut co-founder and CEO Nikolay Storonsky has accused UK regulators of inefficiency and red tape as it awaits the formal decision on its banking licence application.
Earlier this month, Storonsky told The Times: “You wait for emails or letters for months. This is not the business environment to operate in the modern world.”
This week, Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield joined the American tech accelerator Y Combinator, telling Bloomberg: “That ambition and that sort of belief that you can achieve anything I think is very, very powerful and intoxicating, and doesn’t exist as much in London.”
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