Canva has announced the acquisitions of Simtheory and Ortto as part of its strategy to enhance its artificial intelligence and marketing capabilities. This move aims to transform Canva from a primarily design tool into a comprehensive platform that provides teams with the ability to manage workflows from ideation to campaign execution, measurement, and optimization.
The integration of Simtheory and Ortto brings together technologies that focus on agentic AI, customer data infrastructure, marketing automation, and customer engagement. Simtheory specializes in AI collaboration and agent management, empowering teams to construct AI assistants capable of executing tasks across various workflows and applications. The platform is tailored to help organizations advance from basic AI-generated outputs to more sophisticated, execution-focused applications.
Ortto complements this by adding customer data and marketing automation functions, allowing teams to design campaigns that span multiple channels, including email, SMS, push notifications, and in-app messaging. Its event-driven architecture and no-code integrations facilitate real-time activation of customer data, promoting more personalized and scalable marketing initiatives.
The founders of both companies, Chris Sharkey and Mike Sharkey, will assume leadership roles at Canva, focusing on AI and marketing technology. These acquisitions align with Canva’s recent expansion efforts, which have included the addition of platforms like MagicBrief, MangoAI, and Doohly, further broadening its product ecosystem.
With over 265 million monthly users worldwide, Canva is positioning itself as an end-to-end platform that integrates creation, collaboration, and execution, fortified by AI-driven tools. The company plans to unveil further developments at its upcoming Canva Create event on April 16.
“We’re excited to welcome Simtheory and Ortto to Canva. They’ve built exceptional teams and technology, and 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,” said Cliff Obrecht, Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer at Canva.
Obrecht emphasized that the acquisition of Simtheory will accelerate Canva’s evolution from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform enriched with design and productivity tools. He also noted, “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 optimizing across every channel.” He pointed out that this builds upon recent acquisitions and signifies the untapped potential that lies ahead.
Mike Sharkey, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of both Simtheory and Ortto, expressed enthusiasm about the transition, stating, “We’re thrilled to be joining Canva. 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.” He added, “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.”
In a landscape increasingly driven by data and AI, Canva’s acquisitions signal a significant step in its mission to redefine how users approach marketing and design. The company’s efforts to integrate AI more deeply into its platform suggest an ambitious future, positioning it as a formidable player in both the design and marketing sectors.
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