Canva strengthens offering with MangoAI and Cavalry acquisitions

Canva has announced the acquisitions of both MangoAI and Cavalry. These acquisitions will further advance Canva’s long-term product roadmap by bolstering its AI and professional creative suite.

These acquisitions mark Canva’s fourth and fifth in the last two years, following Affinity (2024), Leonardo (2024), and MagicBrief (2025), as the company doubles down on building a comprehensive suite of visual communication tools.

Canva is used by over 265 million people, and its AI products have been used more than 24 billion times. In 2025 alone, more than 50 million new users joined the platform as visual communication becomes increasingly central to how teams work.

Commenting on the two acquisitions, Cliff Obrecht, Co-Founder and COO, Canva, explained: “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.

“With the acquisition of MangoAI, we’re also doubling down on building powerful new products for marketing and creative teams. Building on MagicBrief, MangoAI’s algorithms and learning loops will power the next generation of our AI-driven marketing products, laying the foundations for a new era where performance data continuously improves and adapts creative in real time.”

Cavalry

With the acquisition of Cavalry, the UK-based 2D animation platform, Canva is advancing its push into professional-grade creative tools. This builds on the strong momentum and demand for Affinity, which surpassed more than four million downloads since launching in October. Created by animators, for animators, Cavalry makes 2D animation smarter, easier and faster to produce. Co-Founder of Cavalry, Chris Hardcastle, said: “We built Cavalry to give motion designers a faster, more flexible creative playground suitable for the demands of modern production. Canva’s platform and long-term vision make it a natural next chapter for our technology. 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.

ACF Investors, one of Cavalry’s early investors, commented on the acquisition: “Born out of Manchester’s thriving media sector, we first backed the Cavalry team in 2021, recognising the fundamental need for the product in the design sector. Cavalry has a world-leading product and fantastic team, led by Chris Hadcastle, and we’re so proud to have supported them from the earliest stages. The successful exit is a testament to the strength of the UK’s creative industries, and we wish the team the greatest success in the next stage of their journey with Canva.”

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MangoAI

Canva has also acquired MangoAI, an early-stage US startup specialising in AI-powered creative optimisation for video advertising. MangoAI has built proprietary algorithms and a closed-loop reinforcement learning system for generating and launching effective video ads. Using ad platform reward signals, it automatically improves content, increasing performance and effectiveness while reducing the time and spend it takes to find what works.

As part of the acquisition, MangoAI Co-Founder Nirmal Govind joins Canva as its first Chief Algorithms Officer, a newly created role reflecting Canva’s deepening investment across AI research, personalisation, and in-house model development.

“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,” said Nirmal Govind, Co-Founder, MangoAI.