Canva acquires Simtheory, Ortto

Canva said it will acquire Simtheory and Ortto in a move that adds more agentic AI and automation to its platform.

Simtheory provides an AI collaboration and agent management platform. Ortto specializes in customer data and marketing automation. Canva's plan is to expand beyond being a design platform to manage marketing workflows from ideation to campaign management.

Canva said both companies have the same co-founders, Chris and Mike Sharkey, who will take on leadership roles. The acquisitions mark "an important step toward evolving Canva from a design tool into the system where work happens end-to-end, whether it’s a quick idea or a full campaign,” said Cliff Obrecht, Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer at Canva.

The company said it will detail more about its strategy and evolution at Canva Create April 16. Canva is building out its platform via acquisitions including MagicBrief, MangoAI and Doohly in addition to the two purchases today.

Key details about the Simtheory and Ortto deals.

• Simtheory enables teams to leverage the latest LLMs for multiple use cases. Workers can set up agentic AI to complete tasks. Here's a look at Simtheory.

• Ortto brings marketing workflows together with its marketing automation and customer data platform. Ortto supports journeys across email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messaging, forms and surveys.
• Ortto has an event driven architecture and more than 11,000 customers in 190 countries. Here's a look at Ortto:

• Ortto will continue to support and maintain its platform and bring features to Canva Grow.