Canva Snaps Up Cavalry and MangoAI to Supercharge AI and Motion Design Ambitions

Canva has acquired UK-based animation startup Cavalry and U.S.-based video ads company MangoAI, signaling an aggressive push into professional motion design and AI-driven marketing tools. The twin deals deepen Canva’s AI stack and strengthen its long-term challenge to creative software heavyweights such as Adobe and Apple.

The move underscores Canva’s strategy to evolve from an easy design platform into a full creative and marketing operating system.

What Canva Acquired

The acquisitions target two high-impact areas: advanced motion graphics and performance-driven video advertising.

Cavalry

Cavalry is a small but respected four-person startup that builds subscription software for 2D motion graphics and animation. It is widely used by teams at major tech companies including Amazon, Meta, Google, Netflix and OpenAI.

The platform has gained traction as a lightweight alternative to Adobe After Effects for many animation workflows.

MangoAI

MangoAI operates in stealth mode and focuses on AI-powered video advertising. Its core technology generates and optimizes short marketing videos using proprietary algorithms and closed-loop reinforcement learning that learns directly from ad platform performance data.

Together, the acquisitions give Canva stronger capabilities across both creative production and performance marketing.

How Cavalry Fits Into Canva’s Product Vision

Canva plans to keep Cavalry as a standalone paid product while also embedding its motion design engine across the broader Canva ecosystem.

Integration targets include:

• Canva’s core editor
• The Affinity creative suite
• Future pro design workflows

Affinity, which Canva acquired in 2024 and made free in 2025, already covers photo editing, vector design and layout tools. Adding advanced 2D animation moves Canva closer to a unified creative platform spanning static and motion design.

The company is positioning this bundle as a simpler and more affordable alternative to traditional professional tools that many users view as complex and expensive.

How MangoAI Strengthens Canva’s AI Marketing Stack

MangoAI will be folded into Canva Grow, the company’s AI-driven advertising product included in Canva’s business plan, priced at roughly $250 per user per year.

Its technology enables:

• Automatic generation of video ad variants
• Intelligent trimming and recombination of footage
• Performance-based creative optimization
• Continuous learning from ad platform signals

The goal is to dramatically reduce the time and cost required to discover high-performing ad creatives.

For marketers, this moves Canva beyond design into full-funnel creative optimization.

The Bigger Strategic Play

These acquisitions fit into Canva’s broader expansion strategy.

The company now reports:

• About 265 million monthly active users
• Roughly 31 million paid subscribers
• Around $4 billion in annualized revenue

Over the past two years, Canva has been steadily assembling a larger AI and creative ecosystem through acquisitions including Affinity, Leonardo, MagicBrief and now Cavalry and MangoAI.

The pattern is clear. Canva is building toward what executives increasingly describe as a unified Creative OS for both designers and marketers.

Competitive Context: Pressure on Legacy Creative Tools

The timing is notable. Traditional creative software vendors are facing growing investor concern about AI disruption.

Adobe’s share price is down roughly 30 percent this year, reflecting broader market anxiety about how generative AI may reshape creative workflows.

Rather than pulling back, Canva is leaning into acquisitions to accelerate its capabilities and close the gap with established incumbents.

The company’s strategy combines three advantages:

• Simpler user experience
• Aggressive AI integration
• Expanding professional feature depth

If executed well, this could shift competitive dynamics in both the design and marketing software markets.

What This Means for Designers and Marketers

For creative professionals, the Cavalry acquisition signals Canva’s serious push into motion graphics, an area historically dominated by Adobe tools.

For marketing teams, MangoAI points to a future where ad creative is increasingly:

• Automated
• performance-optimized
• continuously iterated by AI

The convergence of design tools and marketing intelligence inside a single platform could significantly streamline creative workflows.

Bottom Line

Canva’s acquisition of Cavalry and MangoAI marks another step in its transformation from a simple design tool into a full-scale AI-powered creative and marketing platform. By combining advanced motion graphics with performance-driven video ad optimization, Canva is positioning itself more directly against legacy creative suites.

With strong user growth and continued M&A momentum, the company is signaling that it intends to compete not just on ease of use, but on professional capability and AI depth in the years ahead.