Canva, a leading creative suite maker, has recently made a significant move by acquiring two startups – Cavalry and Mango AI. Cavalry, based in the UK, specializes in 2D motion animation for various industries such as advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art. Canva plans to integrate Cavalry’s animation tools into Affinity, its professional creative editing suite for photos, vectors, and layouts.
Affinity, which Canva acquired in 2024, has seen a surge in popularity since being revamped and offered for free to users. With over five million downloads, Affinity has become a go-to tool for photo, vector, and layout editing. By incorporating Cavalry’s motion editing capabilities, Canva aims to provide a comprehensive suite for professional creatives, bridging the gap in motion editing and offering a full-stack Creative OS.
In addition to Cavalry, Canva has also acquired Mango AI, a stealth startup focused on enhancing video ad performance through reinforcement learning systems. Mango AI’s founders, Nirmal Govind and Vinith Misra, both with backgrounds at Netflix, will play key roles in Canva. Govind will serve as Canva’s first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Misra will focus on improving Canva’s marketing products.
These acquisitions come on the heels of Canva’s previous purchase of Magicbrief, a marketing intelligence startup, and the launch of Canva Grow, a growth tool for asset creation and performance measurement. Canva’s co-founder and COO, Cliff Obrecht, has expressed optimism about Canva Grow’s success, particularly in static content creation for Meta platforms.
Looking ahead, Canva is eyeing further expansion into video creation and more detailed measurement tools to solidify its position as a comprehensive marketing solution. With $4 billion in annualized revenue, 265 million users, and 31 million paid users, Canva is poised for continued growth and innovation in the creative space.
