Canva acquires Cavalry for motion graphics and MangoAI for video ads
From left to right, MangoAI’s Nirmal Govind, Canva Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Cliff Obrecht, and MangoAI’s Vinith Misra.
Canvas
Software stocks have fallen sharply in recent weeks as investors worry about threats from artificial intelligence. In the startup world, Canva has been among the top flyers due to its popularity with designers, but this market is fragile with larger competitors Adobe We’re down 30% so far this year.
As Canva reckons with dramatic changes in the market, the design software supplier is also moving towards acquisition. The company said Monday that it has acquired two startups — Cavalry and MangoAI — that will help in this fight. Adobe.
Cavalry, a four-person startup, sells subscriptions to software for creating two-dimensional animations. MangoAI is a stealth-mode company whose technology can be used to create short videos for advertising purposes. Terms of the agreements were not disclosed.
Cameron Adams, Canva’s co-founder and chief product officer, told CNBC that customers have been asking what the company has to offer in motion graphics. Cavalry, which Canva uses for its own projects drew attention Among designers on social media as an alternative to Adobe’s After Effects for some work.
Canva will continue to operate Cavalry for people to use and purchase independently, and will also incorporate the animation technology into the core Canva product and the Affinity app for professional designers. Canva acquired Affinity in 2024 and did it for free In October.
AmazonByteDance, GoogleAccording to Cavalry’s website, and OpenAI all have employees who pay customers.
Canva plans to include MangoAI in the Canva Grow ad creator, which is available through the business layer for $250 per person per year. MangoAI technology can monitor video performance and make recommendations.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to create the right video,” Adams said. This includes “being able to cut things, reuse and combine content from other campaigns, take a great call to action that happens at the end of one video and then add it to the hook in another video,” he said.
“Analyzing all of this across your campaigns is the exact vision of Canva Grow, and Mango will help make that possible,” Adams added.
Canva said it ended 2025 with annual revenue of over $4 billion, an increase of 36% compared to the previous year. Adobe reported $6.2 billion in revenue November quarter10% increase. While Adobe’s market value was at $101 billion on Monday, Canva announced that its value was determined in August. 42 billion dollars in a second share sale before the recent decline in software stocks.
Adams said Canva has seen examples of people directing generative AI models to create content like slide presentations and social media posts. But AI can’t do everything, he said.
“AI is great at getting you to 80%,” Adams said. “Having that last 20% where you feel confident that you can feature that content, really represent your brand, speak to your audience, and achieve the goals you want to achieve is vital, and that last 20% is really hard to achieve.”
Canva, which currently has more than 5,000 employees, is not currently raising a new round of funding, Adams said.
“Our revenue growth hasn’t stopped, our user growth hasn’t stopped, and the quality of our product is getting better and better with the incorporation of AI,” he said.
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