Canva on Wednesday announced a dual acquisition of Sim Theory, an AI collaboration and agent management platform, and Ortto, a customer data and marketing automation provider. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Canva says the acquisition is part of its continued investments in AI and marketing infrastructure.
Both companies were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey, who previously founded the vacation rental service Stays, which was acquired by Fairfax Media. Both will join Canva in leadership roles across the company’s AI and marketing technology teams.
Canva says the acquisition adds strengths in agent AI, data infrastructure, marketing automation, and customer engagement, and will help Canva evolve from a design tool to a system where teams do everything from start to finish. These additional features expand Canva’s capabilities across your entire workflow, from initial ideation to campaign scaling and measurement.
Sim Theory’s platform helps teams use AI to understand their business, work across tools, and build assistants that handle real-world tasks. Sim Theory allows teams to apply modern models to different use cases and set up agent workflows tailored to their needs.
Ortto, on the other hand, combines a customer data platform with marketing automation, allowing teams to design and execute journeys across email, SMS, push, in-app messaging, forms, and surveys in one system. Canva says its event-driven architecture and no-code integrations make it easy to connect and activate data in real-time. The platform is used by over 11,000 customers in 190 countries.
Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and COO of Canva, said in a press release: “At the same time, through Canva Grow, Ortto strengthens its ability to power the entire marketing and content lifecycle, from planning and creation to publishing and optimization across all channels.”
Canva Grow is the company’s tool for asset creation and performance measurement.
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These latest acquisitions come as Canva is embroiled in a bit of an acquisition spree. Two weeks ago, the company acquired digital out-of-home advertising startup Doohly. Six weeks ago, Canva announced a dual acquisition of animation startup Cavalry and ad performance improvement company MangoAI. Prior to that, Canva acquired marketing intelligence startup MagicBrief in January 2025.
Canva has over 265 million users and 31 million paid users, and ended 2025 with $4 billion in annual revenue. The company also saw a 20% increase in monthly active users.
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