SYDNEY: Canva, the visual communication platform used by more than 265 million people monthly, said it has acquired Simtheory, an AI collaboration and agent management platform, and Ortto, a customer data and marketing automation company, in a move to expand beyond design into end-to-end workflow and campaign management.
The acquisitions are part of Canva’s ongoing investment in artificial intelligence and marketing infrastructure, the company announced Tuesday. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Both companies were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey, who previously founded Stayz, a vacation rental platform acquired by Fairfax Media. The Sharkeys will join Canva in leadership roles across its AI and marketing technology teams.
“We’re excited to welcome Simtheory and Ortto to Canva,” said Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and chief operations officer at Canva. “This acquisition marks an important step toward evolving Canva from a design tool into the system where work happens end-to-end, whether it’s a quick idea or a full campaign.”
Simtheory, known for its work in AI-powered collaboration and multi-model systems, enables teams to build AI assistants that understand their business, collaborate across tasks and applications, and maintain control and reliability for enterprise use. The acquisition lays the groundwork for Canva’s evolution into a system where humans and AI collaborate from idea to finished product, a shift the company plans to unveil April 16 at its Canva Create event.
Ortto combines a customer data platform with marketing automation, allowing teams to design and orchestrate campaigns across email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messaging, forms and surveys within a single system. The platform is used by more than 11,000 customers across 190 countries and will strengthen Canva Grow, the company’s marketing and content lifecycle offering.
The Ortto team will continue to support and maintain the Ortto product while bringing their expertise to Canva Grow.
“The opportunity to bring our technology to the quarter of a billion people using Canva every month and to help more people make the most of AI in their everyday work is incredibly exciting to us,” said Mike Sharkey, co-founder and CEO of Ortto and Simtheory. “From day one, we’ve been working to make complex things simple with both Simtheory and Ortto, and we can’t wait to continue doing that on an even larger scale as part of Canva.”
The acquisitions build on Canva’s recent purchases of MagicBrief, MangoAI and Doohly. The company said it will share early work from the integration at Canva Create on April 16, which it called “the biggest transformation in Canva’s history.”
Launched in 2013, Canva is headquartered in Sydney and serves customers in more than 190 countries.