Canva announced on Wednesday that it is acquiring two companies—Simtheory and Ortto—to strengthen its capabilities in agentic AI, data infrastructure, marketing automation, and customer engagement. The acquisitions are part of Canva’s effort to evolve from a design tool into a system where teams can manage work from start to finish. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The Acquisitions
Simtheory is an AI collaboration and agent management platform, while Ortto is a customer data and marketing automation company. Both were founded by Chris and Mike Sharkey, who previously founded vacation rental service Stayz, which was acquired by Fairfax Media. The Sharkey brothers will join Canva in leadership roles across its AI and marketing technology teams.
According to Canva co-founder and COO Cliff Obrecht, “Simtheory accelerates our evolution from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design and productivity tools at its core.” Obrecht also noted that “Ortto strengthens our ability to power the entire marketing and content lifecycle through Canva Grow, from planning and creating to publishing and optimising.”
Simtheory: Agent Management and Workflow Coordination
Simtheory’s platform helps teams use AI to build assistants that understand their business, work across tools, and handle real tasks. The platform enables teams to apply the latest AI models across diverse use cases and set up agentic workflows tailored to their needs.
Agentic workflows differ from traditional AI text generation by coordinating actions across multiple tools and systems. Simtheory’s agent management capabilities allow teams to create AI assistants that can interact with various business applications and execute tasks autonomously within defined parameters.
Ortto: Customer Data Platform and Marketing Automation
Ortto combines a customer data platform (CDP) with marketing automation, enabling teams to design and run customer journeys across multiple channels in one system. These channels include email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messaging, forms, and surveys.
The platform uses an event-driven architecture and no-code integrations to connect and activate data in real time. Ortto is currently used by more than 11,000 customers across 190 countries, indicating established scale and geographic reach.
Strategic Direction: End-to-End Workflow Integration
The acquisitions extend Canva’s capabilities across the full workflow, from early ideas through campaign scaling and measurement. By combining Simtheory’s agent management with Ortto’s customer data and automation capabilities, Canva is positioning itself to support both content creation and marketing execution within a single platform.
This pairing suggests Canva intends to connect two typically separate parts of the marketing stack: AI systems that coordinate tasks and content production, and data-driven systems that orchestrate customer journeys across channels. The company’s stated outcome is a platform where teams can move through the workflow from planning and creating to publishing and optimizing.
Source: TechCrunch