NewsSep 1, 2026, 08:35 UTC

Airtree extends its first fund to July 2028 to hold onto Canva stake

What's the deal? Airtree Ventures has won investor backing to extend the life of its inaugural fund, letting the Australian venture firm keep hold of its Canva investment. The $60 million fund, raised in 2014, was approaching the end of its life; investors approved an extension of at least a year, to July 2028.

Why now? The fund was about to expire, and Airtree wants more time to realise value from a stake it has held for a decade. It first backed Canva in the design startup's $6 million Series A round in 2015.

What's the endgame? Airtree has already returned some money to investors while keeping most of its holding. A 2024 Canva transaction returned 1.4 times the total invested in Fund I and left the firm with the majority of its original Canva shares.

What could go wrong? The extension follows a drop in Canva's private-market valuation. Airtree and Blackbird Ventures cut their Canva valuation about 17% to roughly US$34.9 billion, below the US$42 billion mark from a 2025 employee share sale.

Canva itself remains strong: it reported US$3.5 billion in revenue for 2025 and 260 million monthly users, and said it was free cash-flow positive for the eighth straight year.

Airtree has grown well beyond Fund I. Its most recent Fund V totals $650 million — a $250 million seed fund and a $400 million growth fund.

The signal: Venture capital continues to concentrate in large deals. KPMG's Venture Pulse recorded US$227.4 billion raised across 8,440 deals worldwide in the second quarter of 2026, with US$560.4 billion invested globally in the first half — the highest level in five years outside of 2021.