The founders of Australian design software juggernaut Canva have declared they are insulated from the tech wipeout that has seen virtually all of the world’s biggest software companies forced to make drastic staffing cuts.

“I think we’ve been really well insulated,” co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams told SMH ahead of today’s Canva Create conference in Sydney.

“And our profitability metrics have given us the ability to kind of breathe a sigh of relief that we are much more fortunate than a lot of other companies that are out there.

“If something drastic did occur in global markets, we would have a war chest of funds that we could draw on. But given that we’re profitable, it hasn’t been necessary, because we can afford to pay everyone, we can afford to pay for all our services.”

Canva is privately owned, and adopts a freemium model, both of which have protected the company. It also didn’t hire excessively during the pandemic.

Due to this, it won’t be firing any of its 3,500-strong workforce, as CEO Melanie Perkins told The Australian in a separate interview.

“We’re in a fortunate position, we’re not doing any lay-offs and we have no plans to whatsoever. We can categorically say we will not do lay-offs,” Perkins said.

“We’ve been profitable for six years, we have a large cash balance, our growth is accelerating and we’re in a good position.

“A couple of years ago we had an internal mantra of ‘fewer things well’, which speaks to us being very intentional about the steps that we’re taking.

“Even though we are still hiring across the company and growing our team, we’re very intentional about that hiring and making sure that it’s gearing us up for the long term.”