Synopsis
Canva has acquired Simtheory and Ortto to strengthen its AI and marketing capabilities. Both companies were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey. The Sharkeys will join Canva in leadership roles, contributing their expertise across the company’s marketing and other teams.Both companies were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey, who previously created Stayz, a holiday accommodation marketplace, a platform later acquired by Fairfax Media. The Sharkeys will join Canva in leadership roles, contributing their expertise across the company’s marketing and other teams.
Simtheory’s platform is designed to help companies build AI assistants that understand their business, operate across different tools, and perform real tasks. It allows firms to apply the latest AI models to a variety of use cases and create customised agent-driven workflows tailored to their needs.
Meanwhile, Ortto combines a customer data platform with marketing automation, enabling teams to design and manage campaigns across email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messaging, forms, and surveys in one unified system. Its event-driven architecture and no-code integrations make it easy to connect and activate data in real time. The platform serves over 11,000 customers in 190 countries.
“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 cofounder and COO Cliff Obrecht, in a press release. ``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 solution for asset creation and performance measurement.
Obrecht added that some early work with Simtheory will be showcased at the Canva Create event on April 16.
These acquisitions are part of an ongoing spree by Canva. In recent weeks, the company acquired Doohly, a digital outdoor advertising startup, and earlier announced the dual acquisition of Cavalry, an animation-focused startup, and MangoAI, which improves ad performance. In January 2025, Canva acquired the marketing intelligence platform MagicBrief.
