Canva Cut 2026 Growth Guidance From 30% to 20% Because It Was 'Relying Too Heavily on Frontier Models' — and the IPO Slipped to 2027
Fortune (corroborated by Stockhead and The SaaS CFO)·high signal
Canva reported Q2 2026 revenue of $921.9M, up 25.2%, but cut full-year growth guidance from 30% to 20%, with CEO Melanie Perkins attributing it to routing too much AI traffic through expensive third-party frontier models while its own models were not ready. The company says it has since cut AI servicing cost per task by roughly 90% by building proprietary models and acquiring AI startups, but Blackbird Ventures' expected H2 2026 listing now appears to slip into 2027. This is the clearest disclosure yet that a profitable, prosumer-scale SaaS business can have its growth rate — not just its margin — set by inference vendor pricing.