Canva Boosts Creative Capabilities with Strategic Acquisitions
Canva, the popular online design platform, has announced two significant acquisitions aimed at enhancing its creative and marketing tools. The company has acquired Cavalry, a specialist in 2D motion animation, and Mango AI, a startup focused on improving video ad performance. These moves signal Canva's commitment to expanding its offerings for both creative professionals and marketers.
Integrating Advanced Animation with Affinity Suite
Cavalry, based in the UK, develops sophisticated 2D animation tools used across various industries including advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art. Canva plans to integrate Cavalry's technology into its professional creative suite, Affinity. Affinity, which Canva acquired earlier and made freely available, already provides robust capabilities for photo editing, vector graphics, and layout design. The addition of Cavalry's animation expertise will enable Canva to offer a comprehensive professional suite that includes photo, vector, layout, and now motion editing.
"By bringing Cavalry alongside Affinity, we’re closing that [motion editing] gap and unlocking a complete professional suite spanning photo, vector, layout, and now motion editing," the company stated. "Together, these tools form the foundation of a full-stack Creative OS for professional work, while preserving the depth and control professional creatives rely on."
Since becoming free for all users, the Affinity suite has seen tremendous adoption, with over five million downloads. The integration of Cavalry is expected to further solidify Affinity's position as a powerful tool for professionals.
Enhancing Marketing Performance with AI
In addition to Cavalry, Canva has also acquired Mango AI, a stealth startup that has been developing reinforcement learning systems to optimize video ad performance. Mango AI's initial product aided clients in creating and launching advertisements, analyzing their outcomes, and refining future campaigns based on the data. This acquisition is poised to significantly bolster Canva's marketing solutions.
Mango AI was founded by Nirmal Govind, a former Vice President of Data Science & Engineering at Netflix, and Vinith Misra, a former data scientist at Netflix and Roblox. Following the acquisition, Govind will assume the role of Canva's first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Misra will focus on enhancing Canva's marketing products. These appointments highlight Canva's strategy to leverage top-tier AI talent.
Continued Expansion in Marketing Technology
These acquisitions follow a pattern of strategic expansion by Canva in the marketing technology space. Earlier in 2025, Canva acquired Magicbrief, a marketing intelligence startup, and subsequently launched Canva Grow, a tool designed for asset creation and performance measurement. Canva Grow has shown promising results, particularly in generating static content for Meta platforms.
Canva's COO, Cliff Obrecht, recently indicated that the company is preparing to release more features for video creation and multi-platform deployment within Canva Grow. He noted the tool's early success and growing user base, including significant interest from major brands.
With these new additions, Canva aims to strengthen its position as a comprehensive marketing solution by incorporating advanced video creation capabilities and more detailed performance analytics. The company concluded 2025 with an impressive $4 billion in annualized revenue and a user base exceeding 265 million, including 31 million paid subscribers.
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