Canva recently revealed its acquisition of two tech companies, Simtheory and Ortto, on April 9. Simtheory specializes in AI collaboration and agent management, while Ortto focuses on customer data and marketing automation. The financial details of the acquisitions were not disclosed.
Chris and Mike Sharkey, the founders of both companies and previous entrepreneurs behind Stayz, a vacation rental platform acquired by Fairfax Media, will take on leadership roles within Canva’s AI and marketing technology divisions.
Canva aims to enhance its AI and marketing infrastructure through these acquisitions, focusing on areas such as agentic AI, data infrastructure, and marketing automation. The goal is to create a comprehensive platform where teams can handle entire workflows from idea generation to campaign execution and performance evaluation.
These acquisitions are part of Canva’s recent expansion strategy, following previous acquisitions of Doohly, a digital outdoor advertising startup, Cavalry, an animation-focused startup, MangoAI for video ads, and MagicBrief, an AI-powered ad platform. According to Techcrunch, Canva closed 2025 with an annual revenue of $4 billion and a user base of over 265 million, with 31 million paid users. Monthly active users also increased by 20 percent during the same period.