Sydney: Photo editing giant Canva has expanded its ambitions beyond static design by acquiring two startups focused on motion and advertising intelligence. The company announced the acquisition of UK-based animation startup Cavalry and US-based AI firm MangoAI, strengthening both its professional creative tools and marketing capabilities.
Cavalry builds 2D motion animation software used across advertising, gaming, marketing, and generative art. Canva plans to integrate Cavalry’s animation technology into Affinity, its professional design suite for photo, vector, and layout editing that it acquired in 2024. Since Canva redesigned Affinity and made it free, the software has crossed five million downloads.
“By bringing Cavalry alongside Affinity, we’re closing that gap and unlocking a complete professional suite spanning photo, vector, layout, and now motion editing,” Canva stated in a blog post.
Cavalry will continue operating as standalone software while its tools embed into Canva and Affinity workflows. Cavalry customers include Amazon, ByteDance, Google and OpenAI according to the company website.
The company also acquired MangoAI, a stealth startup focused on using reinforcement learning to improve video ad performance. MangoAI’s technology helps brands test, measure, and refine ads based on real-world results.
MangoAI was founded by former Netflix executives Nirmal Govind and Vinith Misra. Govind will join Canva as its first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Misra will work on strengthening Canva’s marketing and growth products.
The acquisitions build on Canva’s recent push into marketing intelligence, following its purchase of Magicbrief and the launch of Canva Grow last year.
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