Canva Acquires Animation Powerhouse Cavalry and AI Marketing Innovator Mango AI to Revolutionize Design and Ads

Canva announced the acquisition of two startups, Cavalry and Mango AI, to enhance its animation and marketing capabilities.

Cavalry, a UK-based firm, specializes in 2D motion animation tools for advertising, marketing, gaming, and generative art.

Supercharging Affinity's Professional Suite

The Cavalry acquisition will integrate motion editing into Canva's Affinity suite, creating a comprehensive professional toolkit.

Canva acquired Affinity in 2024, revamped it in 2025, made it free, and achieved over five million downloads.

A Canva blog post emphasized: “By bringing Cavalry alongside Affinity, we’re closing that motion editing gap.”

AI-Powered Marketing with Mango AI

Mango AI develops reinforcement learning systems to optimize video ad performance through creation, launch, and outcome analysis.

Founders Nirmal Govind, ex-Netflix VP, joins as Canva’s first Chief Algorithms Officer, while Vinith Misra enhances marketing products.

This builds on Canva’s January 2025 acquisition of Magicbrief and the launch of Canva Grow for asset creation and measurement.

Co-founder Cliff Obrecht highlighted Canva Grow’s early success with big brands and upcoming video features across platforms.

Ending 2025 with $4 billion annualized revenue, 265 million users, and 31 million paid subscribers, Canva is rapidly expanding.

These acquisitions strengthen Canva’s challenge to Adobe in professional design while advancing AI-driven marketing solutions.

Looking forward, expect enhanced video tools and smarter ad optimization to transform creative workflows for professionals and marketers.