Two graduate students at Brigham Young University built Canvas because the software schools used was clumsy and slow to improve. Teachers post assignments in it, and students turn them in. Universities and school districts use it to run courses, grade work and share materials. When Instructure filed to go public in 2015, Canvas was growing fast and winning campuses away from Blackboard, the long-time leader.

Open Source Out of BYU

Brian Whitmer and Devlin Daley started Instructure in 2008 while they were graduate students at Brigham Young University. They believed the tools schools used were hard to use and slow to improve. Their bet was that a modern, open, cloud-based product would win over teachers and students first, and the schools would follow. Canvas launched in 2011, with an open source version alongside it.

Private, Public, Private Again

Instructure priced at $16 a share in November 2015. Canvas kept adding schools, and the company also built a corporate training product. Thoma Bravo took Instructure private in 2020. It returned to the public market in 2021. In 2024 KKR bought the company for about $4.8 billion, and it went private again. Canvas remains one of the most widely used learning systems in American higher education.

Cover: An Artist at His Easel, John Singer Sargent. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a painter at his easel (Canvas).