Online design giant Canva has announced the dual acquisition of US-based MangoAI and UK-based Cavalry, a move that significantly strengthens its AI marketing and professional animation ambitions.
Adding these two powerhouses brings Canva’s total acquisitions to five in just the last two years (following up on massive buys like Affinity, Leonardo, and MagicBrief). But it’s not just about adding new tools; Canva is building an absolute juggernaut of a “Creative OS” while seriously bolstering its Canva Grow marketing suite.
Taken together, these deals sharpen Canva’s pitch as more than just a drag-and-drop design tool. The company is building a full creative and marketing operating system.
Was Cavalry the missing link for motion design?
If you’ve been following the creative space, you’ll know Cavalry was dubbed the “breakout creative tool of 2025.” Built by former Mainframe studio head Chris Hardcastle alongside Martin Vejdarski, Ian Waters, and Adam Jenns, Cavalry is a top-tier 2D motion animation platform. Its current user base already reads like a tech “Who’s Who,” boasting giants like Apple, Google, Meta, Nike, OpenAI, and ironically, Canva itself!
For Canva, acquiring Cavalry, its seventh Europe-based acquisition since 2019, is a genius play to complete its professional suite. Last year, Canva made massive waves by revamping its professional creative suite, Affinity, and making it completely free, resulting in over five million downloads. Affinity already handles photo, vector, and layout editing like a dream, but it lacked one thing: motion.
“By bringing Cavalry alongside Affinity, we’re closing that gap and unlocking a complete professional suite,” Canva noted in a recent blog post. Hardcastle shared the excitement, adding that the partnership gives them “an incredible opportunity to redefine motion design, bringing smarter workflows that make animation more powerful, and far more accessible.”
Mango.AI supercharges Canva Grow with next-gen algorithms
On the marketing side, Canva is snapping up Mango.AI, a wildly promising 10-month-old San Francisco startup that was operating entirely in stealth mode. The brains behind it? Nirmal Govind (former Netflix Data Science VP) and Vinith Misra (former Netflix and Roblox ML scientist).
Mango.AI uses advanced machine learning and reinforcement loops to dramatically improve the efficiency and real-world outcomes of video ads. This technology is being baked directly into Canva Grow, the company’s powerhouse marketing intelligence tool.
The integration of Mango.AI’s tech aligns perfectly with what Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht teased earlier this month at Web Summit Qatar. Obrecht noted that Canva Grow is already doing “incredibly well” for static content on platforms like Meta, but teased that the company would “soon be launching a lot more things around video creation, deploying across multiple platforms.”
With the acquisition, Govind will step up to become Canva’s first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Misra will lead reinforcement learning at Canva’s Research Lab. “I’m excited to join the team and help shape how data, algorithms, and AI power personalized experiences across the product,” Govind shared.
The road to a $65 billion IPO?
These acquisitions aren’t just for show; they are adding serious fuel to a rocket ship that is already in orbit. Canva closed out 2025 with a staggering $4 billion in annualized revenue, boasting 265 million monthly active users, including an impressive 31 million paid users.
Following a secondary share sale in mid-2025, the company is sitting comfortably at a $65 billion valuation. With Canva systematically eliminating gaps in its professional suite and pioneering hyper-efficient AI marketing tools, the design world is watching closely as the company considers a highly anticipated US IPO later this year.
