Dual Acquisition Announcement
Creative software company Canva announced on Monday that it has acquired two startups: animation platform Cavalry and marketing technology firm Mango AI. The company aims to strengthen its creative and marketing tools through these deals.
Cavalry to Enhance Design Tools
UK-based Cavalry develops 2D motion animation tools used in advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art. Canva says the technology will improve its professional design suite Affinity, which it purchased in 2024. Affinity supports photo, vector, and layout editing.
Last year, Canva redesigned Affinity and made it free for users. Since then, more than five million people have downloaded the software. Now, Canva plans to add motion editing to the suite.
According to a company blog post, combining Cavalry with Affinity will complete its editing tools. The platform will cover photo, vector, layout, and motion design in one place. Canva believes this step will build a full-stack creative operating system while keeping advanced controls for professionals.
Mango AI Focuses on Advertising Performance
Canva also acquired stealth startup Mango AI. The startup developed reinforcement-learning systems to improve video ad performance. Its first product helped clients launch ads and analyse results to improve future campaigns.
Former Netflix executives Nirmal Govind and Vinith Misra founded Mango AI. Govind will join Canva as its first Chief Algorithms Officer. Meanwhile, Misra will work on improving the company’s marketing products.
Earlier Marketing Expansion
In January 2025, Canva acquired marketing intelligence startup Magicbrief. Later, it launched Canva Grow, a tool for creating marketing assets and tracking performance.
At the Web Summit Qatar event, Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht said Canva Grow performs well. The tool especially helps users create static content and publish it on Meta platforms. He also said the company will soon introduce video-creation and multi-platform publishing features.
Company Growth and Strategy
Through these acquisitions, Canva wants to expand its role as a marketing platform. The company plans to add video creation tools and deeper performance tracking.
Canva ended 2025 with about $4 billion in annualised revenue. It also reported more than 265 million users and around 31 million paid subscribers.