ASIC fines Canva $792,000 over late accounts as filings show $US242m loss

Australia's corporate regulator has fined Canva Group A$792,000 over the late lodgement of its 2024 financial reports, with the long-delayed accounts showing the Sydney design software company posted a US$242 million net loss on revenue of US$2.1 billion.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said on 6 May that four entities within the group, Canva Pty Ltd, Canva Operations Pty Limited, Canva Trading Pty Ltd and Fusion Books Pty Ltd, each paid A$198,000 in infringement notices for missing the 30 April 2025 deadline for FY24 reports. Canva Pty Ltd lodged the consolidated FY24 report covering all four entities on 27 March 2026, almost 11 months after the due date.

"Companies and other entities with reporting obligations must ensure financial reports are lodged within the required timeframes," ASIC Commissioner Kate O'Rourke said in a statement. "Both non-lodgment and late lodgement prevents creditors and other users of the reports from making timely and informed decisions when dealing with these companies and is a failure of their legal obligations."

A Canva spokesperson said the company "takes our reporting obligations seriously" and had "strengthened our reporting systems" as the business scaled. The statement did not address the cause of the delay.

What the filing showed

The filings give the public its clearest read of Canva's books in three years. Revenue rose to US$2.1 billion in calendar 2024, up from US$1.44 billion in 2023 and US$962 million in 2022. The headline gain on the top line did not translate to the bottom. Canva booked a US$242 million net loss for 2024, taking combined losses across 2022 to 2024 to US$692 million, or about A$955 million.

Operating cash flow improved over the same period, reaching US$263 million in 2024 against US$133 million the year before. The company finished 2024 with close to A$1 billion in cash on the balance sheet, a buffer that gives Canva room to keep absorbing losses while it pivots its product set.

Canva was self-valued at US$42 billion (about A$60 billion) in an August 2025 employee secondary share sale that let staff cash out alongside outside buyers. Co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht has said publicly that the company is preparing for an initial public offering and expects a listing in 2027. Canva reports about 265 million monthly active users and 31 million paying users, with annualised revenue running above US$4 billion at the time of filing.

Late by 11 months

ASIC's published timeline shows the lapse was not a one-off. Canva's 2021 and 2022 accounts were lodged in September last year. The 2023 and 2024 accounts arrived in March 2026, more than two years late for the 2023 numbers and 11 months late for 2024. The 2024 numbers had been the subject of speculation in the local startup press, after the company opted to delay disclosure rather than give an interim update.

The group has since restructured. From the financial year ending 31 December 2025, group reporting consolidates through Canva Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, which lodged its FY25 reports on 30 April 2026, on time. The new holding structure is the same one that will carry the company into a public listing if Obrecht's 2027 timetable holds.

ASIC's wider push

The Canva penalty sits inside a broader ASIC campaign on reporting compliance. Financial reporting misconduct is a 2026 enforcement priority for the regulator, and ASIC has issued 21 infringement notices over FY24 reporting breaches, totalling more than A$4 million. Most of the recent activity has fallen on large private companies whose accounts are required by the Corporations Act but rarely scrutinised the way listed-company filings are.

The A$792,000 figure is small for a company of Canva's size. At an annualised US$4 billion in revenue, the fine works out to about 0.01 per cent of run-rate sales. The reputational signal sent ahead of an IPO matters more, particularly for a private company that has not had to discuss its accounts on a quarterly call with public-market investors. Underwriters reviewing late filings during due diligence tend to flag them, even when the underlying business is growing, because the same gaps in governance can show up again in disclosure controls after a listing.

Canva was founded in 2013 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams. Long-serving chief technology officer Brendan Humphreys stepped down earlier this year after 12 years in the role. The company is in the middle of a product transition it markets as Canva 2.0, shifting parts of its commercial model from straight subscription to AI credits as it ships agentic editing features. Canva has framed that shift to investors as the reason behind the bigger losses booked in 2024.

ASIC's O'Rourke flagged the broader enforcement posture rather than singling out Canva. The regulator has signalled it will continue infringement-notice activity into FY26, with a focus on private companies that meet the large proprietary threshold and miss statutory lodgement dates. Canva, on the regulator's reading, is now compliant for FY25, leaving the historical penalty as the live issue going into pre-IPO scrutiny.