A rift between Airtree Ventures and some of its longest-standing investors over the venture capital giant’s failure to return enough capital from its early investment in design giant Canva has deepened, after it struggled to convince enough of its backers to support plans to further extend the life of its first fund.

Airtree’s first fund was raised in 2014 by co-founders Daniel Petre and Craig Blair, and among the tech start-ups it backed was Canva, which had grown into a $60 billion tech giant. However, that valuation for Canva has declined to $48.5 billion after it was revalued by Airtree and Blackbird Ventures, amid concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on its business.

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