Not every news cycle adds clarity. This piece on canva doubles down on ai and marketing automation with simtheory, ortto acquisitions aims to do exactly that: cut the noise, share the core facts, and offer a balanced read of the implications for individuals and small businesses.
Canva announced on Wednesday the dual acquisition of Simtheory, an AI collaboration and agent management platform, and Ortto, a customer data and marketing automation company. The financial terms of the deals were not disclosed. Canva says the acquisitions are part of its continued investment in AI and marketing infrastructure.
Both companies were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey, previously founders of vacation rental service Stayz, which was acquired by Fairfax Media. The pair will join Canva in leadership roles across the company’s AI and marketing technology teams.
Canva says the acquisitions add strengths in agentic AI, data infrastructure, marketing automation, and customer engagement, helping Canva evolve from a design tool into a system where teams do all of their work from start to finish. The additions extend Canva’s capabilities across the full workflow, from early ideas to campaign scaling and measurement.
Simtheory’s platform helps teams use AI to build assistants that understand their business, work across tools, and handle real tasks. Simtheory lets teams apply the latest models across diverse use cases and set up agentic workflows tailored to their needs.
On the other hand, Ortto combines a customer data platform with marketing automation, letting teams design and run journeys across email, SMS, push, in-app messaging, forms, and surveys in one system. Its event-driven architecture and no-code integrations make it easy to connect and activate data in real-time, Canva says. The platform is used by more than 11,000 customers in 190 countries.
“Simtheory accelerates our evolution from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design and productivity tools at its core,” said Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht, in a press release. “At the same time, Ortto strengthens our ability to power the entire marketing and content lifecycle through Canva Grow, from planning and creating to publishing and optimising across every channel.”
Canva Grow is the company’s tool for asset creation and performance measurement.
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These latest acquisitions come as Canva has been on a bit of an acquisition spree. Two weeks ago, the company acquired digital outdoor advertising startup Doohly. Six weeks ago, Canva announced the dual acquisition of startups Cavalry, which works on animation, and MangoAI, which works on improving ad performance. Before that, Canva acquired marketing intelligence startup MagicBrief in January 2025.
Canva closed 2025 at $4 billion in annualized revenue with more than 265 million users and 31 million paid users. The company also saw a 20% increase in monthly active users.
