Canva doubles down on AI and marketing automation with Simtheory, Ortto acquisitions

Canva announced the acquisition of Simtheory, an AI collaboration and agent management platform, and Ortto, a customer data and marketing automation company. Both companies were founded by brothers Chris and Mike Sharkey, who will join Canva in leadership roles. The acquisitions are part of Canva's strategy to evolve from a design tool into a comprehensive work platform, following several recent acquisitions as the company reached $4 billion in annualized revenue.

Key Points

• 1. Canva acquired Simtheory, which helps teams build AI assistants and set up agentic workflows, and Ortto, a marketing automation platform used by over 11,000 customers in 190 countries.
• 2. Both companies were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey, former founders of vacation rental service Stayz, who will join Canva's leadership team.
• 3. Simtheory accelerates Canva's transformation from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design tools at its core.
• 4. Ortto strengthens Canva Grow, the company's tool for asset creation and performance measurement across the full marketing lifecycle.
• 5. These acquisitions follow a string of recent deals including Doohly, Cavalry, MangoAI, and MagicBrief over the past year.
• 6. Canva closed 2025 at $4 billion in annualized revenue with over 265 million users and 31 million paid subscribers.

Relevance

• Canva's dual acquisition signals the company's aggressive push to become a full-service enterprise platform rather than just a design tool.
• The focus on agentic AI and marketing automation reflects the broader industry trend of integrating AI agents into business workflows.
• With $4 billion in revenue and a rapid acquisition pace, Canva is positioning itself to compete with larger enterprise software companies in the AI-driven marketing space.

Canva's acquisition spree reflects a broader industry shift where design and creative tools are evolving into AI-powered enterprise platforms that manage entire business workflows.