Canva acquires Simtheory, Ortto to evolve into AI platform
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- Canva announced Wednesday the dual acquisition of Simtheory, an AI collaboration and agent management platform, and Ortto, a customer data and marketing automation company, though financial terms were not disclosed.
- Simtheory and Ortto were both founded by brothers Chris and Mike Sharkey, former founders of vacation rental service Stayz (acquired by Fairfax Media), who will join Canva in AI and marketing technology leadership roles.
- Ortto serves more than 11,000 customers across 190 countries, combining a customer data platform with marketing automation across email, SMS, push, in-app messaging, forms, and surveys via an event-driven architecture.
- Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht said the deals accelerate Canva's evolution "from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design and productivity tools at its core," extending workflows through Canva Grow from planning to measurement.
- The acquisitions continue Canva's aggressive M&A run: Doohly (two weeks prior), Cavalry and MangoAI (six weeks prior), and marketing intelligence startup MagicBrief (January 2025).
- Canva closed 2025 at $4 billion in annualized revenue with more than 265 million total users, 31 million paid users, and a 20% increase in monthly active users.
Why it matters: By absorbing Ortto's customer data and marketing automation infrastructure, Canva is moving from a point solution for designers into direct competition with platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce — a $4 billion revenue base and 31 million paying users gives it the commercial leverage to make that leap credible rather than speculative.
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