Canva has acquired Simtheory and Ortto, two software companies focused on artificial intelligence and marketing automation, as it expands beyond design into a comprehensive workplace platform.
The company confirmed the deals on Wednesday but did not disclose how much it paid.
Both businesses were started by brothers Chris and Mike Sharkey, who earlier co-founded Stayz. They will now take up leadership roles inside Canva, working across its AI and marketing technology teams.
With the acquisition, Canva is working to bring more of a team’s daily work into one place, building tools that cover everything from early ideas to running and measuring campaigns.
Simtheory focuses on AI systems that can carry out tasks. Its platform allows companies to build assistants trained on their own data, connect them to tools like email or customer systems, and assign real work. Teams can also design workflows where these assistants handle repeated tasks.
Ortto works on the marketing side, combining customer data with tools that let companies run campaigns across email, SMS, push notifications and in-app messages.
Canva says the system is already used by more than 11,000 customers across 190 countries, with features that allow data to update and trigger actions in real time.
“Simtheory accelerates our evolution from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design and productivity tools at its core,” said Canva co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht.
“At the same time, Ortto strengthens our ability to power the entire marketing and content lifecycle through Canva Grow, from planning and creating to publishing and optimising across every channel.”
Canva Grow is the company’s product for content creation and performance tracking. These new additions will sit alongside it.
In recent months, Canva has steadily added new companies including Doohly, which focuses on digital outdoor advertising, just weeks ago.
Earlier, it acquired Cavalry, an animation startup, and MangoAI, which works on improving advert performance. In January last year, it also picked up marketing intelligence firm MagicBrief.
The latest deals with Simtheory and Ortto push Canva further into a space long held by larger enterprise software firms. It is building tools that combine design, data and automation, instead of relying on separate systems.
The company is expected to show how all of this fits together at its Canva Create event on April 16, where it has said it will unveil what it calls its biggest product update yet.
Canva closed 2025 with about $4 billion in annualised revenue. It reported more than 265 million users and 31 million paying customers, with monthly activity up by around 20% over the year.
