Canva Acquires Two AI Technology Companies
The acquisitions of MangoAI and Cavalry are Canva’s fourth and fifth in a two-year streak.
Canva, the visual communication platform, announced the acquisitions of two AI technology companies: video generator MangoAI and animator software Cavalry.
These acquisitions mark Canva’s fourth and fifth in a two-year streak that includes the 2024 purchases of Affinity and Leonardo, and MagicBrief in 2025.
The company also announced it closed 2025 with more than $4 billion in annualized revenue (up 36% year-over-year), more than 31 million paid seats, and strong free cash flow for the ninth consecutive year.
“With Cavalry joining Canva, we’re taking another big step toward helping professional designers break free from bloated and expensive tools, bringing everything from vector to motion design into one powerful creative suite,” said Cliff Obrecht, Canva’s co-founder and chief operation officer.
“With the acquisition of MangoAI, we’re doubling down on building powerful new products for marketing and creative teams,” he said in a press statement.
Cavalry
The acquisition of Cavalry, the UK-based 2D animation platform, builds on the momentum and demand for Affinity, which has had more than five million downloads since its October 2025 launch.
The acquisition expands Canva’s professional design suite into an interoperable solution for creatives.
“We built Cavalry to give motion designers a faster, more flexible creative playground suitable for the demands of modern production,” said Cavalry’s co-founder Chris Hardcastle.
“Canva’s platform and long-term vision make it a natural next chapter for our technology,” he said in the same press statement.
“Together, we have an incredible opportunity to redefine motion design, bringing smarter workflows that make animation more powerful, and far more accessible, to a new generation of creatives.”
Cavalry founders Chris Hardcastle, Ian Waters, and Adam Jenns, will join Canva to help shape the future of the company’s professional creative offering.
It is Canva’s seventh Europe-based acquisition, joining Affinity (2024), Flourish (2022), Kaleido (2021), Smartmockups (2021), Pexels (2019) and Pixabay (2019).
MangoAI
Canva also acquired MangoAI, an early-stage US startup specializing in AI-powered creative optimization for video advertising.
MangoAI uses ad platform reward signals to improves content and increase performance and effectiveness while reducing the time and spend it takes to find what works.
The acquisition builds on the creative intelligence capabilities added to Canva through the acquisition of MagicBrief last year, and will strengthen Canva Grow, the company’s suite of marketing intelligence tools.
“Canva has built one of the world’s most impactful creative platforms. I’m excited to join the team and help shape how data, algorithms, and AI power personalised experiences across the product – supporting everyone from first-time creators to the most advanced teams,” Nirmal Govind, co-founder of MangoAI, said.
Govind, formerly vice president of data science & engineering at Netflix, joins Canva as its first chief algorithms officer, a newly created role that reflects Canva’s investment in AI research, personalization, and in-house model development.
Co-founder Vinith Misra, formerly a machine learning scientist and leader at Roblox and Netflix, also joins Canva in the role of reinforcement learning lead within Canva’s Research Lab.
According to Canva, more than 265 million people use the platform, including teams at over 95% of the Fortune 500.
More than 50 million new users joined the platform in 2025 as visual communication becomes more important to how teams work.
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