Canva Acquires Animation and Marketing Startups to Boost Platform
▼ Summary
– Canva has acquired two startups: Cavalry, a 2D motion animation company, and Mango AI, which focuses on improving ad performance.
– The Cavalry acquisition aims to add motion editing capabilities to Canva’s professional Affinity suite, creating a more complete creative operating system.
– Mango AI’s founders, former Netflix and Roblox data experts, will join Canva, with one becoming the company’s first Chief Algorithms Officer.
– These acquisitions are part of Canva’s strategy to bolster its marketing solutions, particularly in video creation and performance measurement.
– Canva reported strong 2025 results, including $4 billion in annualized revenue and over 265 million users.
In a strategic move to expand its creative and marketing capabilities, Canva has acquired two specialized startups: Cavalry, a 2D animation platform, and Mango AI, a company focused on improving advertising performance through machine learning. These acquisitions signal a clear push to enhance Canva’s professional suite, particularly for users in marketing and design who require advanced motion graphics and data-driven ad optimization tools. The company aims to integrate these new technologies into its existing ecosystem, building on the success of its Affinity professional editing software.
The integration of Cavalry’s animation tooling is set to add motion editing to the Affinity suite, which currently handles photo, vector, and layout editing. This addition aims to create what Canva describes as a “complete professional suite” or a full-stack Creative OS. The UK-based Cavalry serves various sectors, including advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art. Since Canva revamped and made Affinity free last year, downloads have surpassed five million, demonstrating significant user interest in its professional-grade tools. The company believes adding motion capabilities will close a critical gap for creative professionals who need depth and control in their workflows.
Alongside the animation focus, the purchase of stealth startup Mango AI brings sophisticated reinforcement learning systems to Canva’s marketing products. Mango AI’s initial product helped clients create, launch, and optimize ad campaigns by analyzing outcomes. The startup was founded by former Netflix executives Nirmal Govind and Vinith Misra. Following the acquisition, Govind will assume the newly created role of Chief Algorithms Officer at Canva, while Misra will work on enhancing the company’s marketing offerings. This expertise is expected to significantly boost Canva’s capabilities in ad performance and intelligent campaign measurement.
These latest purchases continue Canva’s targeted expansion into marketing solutions. Earlier in 2025, the company acquired marketing intelligence startup Magicbrief and subsequently launched a growth tool named Canva Grow. This tool assists with asset creation and performance measurement, particularly for static content on platforms like Meta. Canva’s co-founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht, noted that Canva Grow has developed a loyal user base, including major brands, and that the company plans to expand its features into video creation and multi-platform deployment.
With these strategic acquisitions, Canva is bolstering its position as an all-in-one marketing and creative platform, aiming to offer more granular measurement and advanced video creation tools. The company closed 2025 with impressive metrics, reporting $4 billion in annualized revenue, over 265 million total users, and 31 million paid subscribers. By integrating animation and AI-driven marketing technologies, Canva is systematically building a more comprehensive and competitive ecosystem for professional creatives and businesses worldwide.
(Source: TechCrunch)
