Canva is strengthening its position in the creative software and marketing technology space with two new acquisitions. The design platform announced it has acquired Cavalry, a UK based animation startup, and MangoAI, a company focused on improving ad performance through advanced algorithms.
The move signals Canva’s growing ambition to build a complete creative and marketing ecosystem for professionals and businesses.
Canva Adds Motion Design with Cavalry
Canva confirmed that Cavalry’s 2D motion animation technology will expand the capabilities of Affinity, its professional design suite acquired in 2024. Affinity now provides powerful tools for photo editing, vector illustration, and professional layout design.
After revamping Affinity and making it free last year, Canva reported more than 5 million downloads. However, motion design was a missing piece in its professional toolkit. By bringing Cavalry into the fold, Canva aims to fill that gap and offer motion editing alongside photo, vector, and layout tools.
Cavalry has built a strong reputation for delivering high quality 2D animation solutions across fields such as advertising, digital marketing, gaming, and creative art projects. With its technology becoming part of Canva’s ecosystem, users can expect more sophisticated animation capabilities designed for advanced workflows, without losing the creative control and detail professionals need.
This acquisition supports Canva’s broader vision of building a full creative operating system for modern design workflows.
Strengthening Marketing AI with MangoAI
In addition to animation, Canva is doubling down on marketing intelligence. The company also acquired MangoAI, a stealth startup focused on reinforcement learning systems designed to improve video ad performance.
MangoAI developed tools that help brands create, launch, and analyze advertising campaigns, using performance data to optimize future results. The startup was founded by Nirmal Govind, formerly Vice President of Data Science and Engineering at Netflix, and Vinith Misra, who previously worked as a data scientist at Netflix and Roblox.
Following the acquisition, Govind will take on the role of Canva’s first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Misra will contribute to advancing Canva’s marketing and growth products.
Expanding Canva’s Marketing Ecosystem
These new acquisitions are part of Canva’s broader expansion into the marketing space. At the beginning of 2025, the company purchased MagicBrief, a startup known for its marketing analytics solutions. Not long after, Canva rolled out Canva Grow, a platform designed to help businesses create marketing assets and monitor their performance more effectively.
Canva executives have noted strong early traction for Canva Grow, particularly for creating static content and publishing to Meta platforms. The company is now preparing to expand into video creation and multi platform campaign deployment, positioning itself as a comprehensive solution for digital marketers.
With more than 265 million users and 31 million paid subscribers, Canva closed 2025 with $4 billion in annualized revenue. By adding advanced animation capabilities and AI powered marketing optimization, Canva is clearly aiming to compete not just as a design platform but as a powerful end to end marketing solution.
