Canva acquires Cavalry and MangoAI to deepen motion-graphics and video-ad capabilities
Canva expands into motion graphics and video advertising with two acquisitions
Canva announced purchases of two small startups to accelerate its push into motion design and short-form video advertising. The acquisitions pair a niche animation tool with a stealth-mode ad-video product and will be folded into Canva’s core creative surface and its professional offering, Affinity.
Canva will keep one product available as a standalone option while also embedding its engine inside the platform, and plans to add the ad-video technology to Canva Grow, the company’s business-tier marketing generator. Executives framed the deals as capability buys: richer motion tooling for designers and automated video performance analysis for advertisers.
The timing follows a broader re-pricing of software stocks and intensifying competitive pressure from legacy creative vendors and emergent AI tools. Canva pointed to persistent user demand for polished motion content and to the difficulty automated systems still face delivering the final quality designers require. That rationale underpins why the company opted to acquire rather than build from scratch.
Operationally, the integrations focus on three levers: expanding motion feature parity, boosting ad creative optimization inside paid workflows, and funneling higher-value business customers into paid tiers. Executives emphasized product integration and ad-performance feedback loops as immediate priorities for the next few quarters.
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