Canva acquires startups working on animation and marketing

Canva has made a strategic dual acquisition, purchasing animation platform Cavalry and AI marketing startup Mango AI, signaling a major push into motion graphics and data-driven advertising. The UK-based Cavalry specializes in 2D motion animation for advertising, gaming, and generative art. Its technology will be integrated into Canva's professional Affinity suite—which saw over 5 million downloads after being made free—adding motion editing to its existing photo, vector, and layout capabilities. Canva states this closes a key gap, creating a 'full-stack Creative OS' for professional creatives.

Simultaneously, Canva acquired stealth startup Mango AI, founded by former Netflix VP of Data Science & Engineering Nirmal Govind and ex-Netflix/Roblox data scientist Vinith Misra. Mango AI built reinforcement learning systems to analyze ad campaign outcomes and improve future performance. Govind will become Canva's first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Misra will focus on enhancing Canva's marketing products. This follows Canva's January 2025 acquisition of marketing intelligence tool Magicbrief and the launch of its growth platform, Canva Grow.

The acquisitions are part of Canva's aggressive expansion from a design tool into a comprehensive marketing solution. COO Cliff Obrecht noted Canva Grow is performing 'incredibly well,' particularly for static content on Meta platforms, with plans to expand into video creation and multi-platform deployment. With 265 million total users, 31 million paid subscribers, and $4 billion in annualized revenue for 2025, Canva is leveraging these acquisitions to compete directly with enterprise marketing suites by adding advanced video creation and granular performance analytics.