Canva Acquires Cavalry and MangoAI: Fresh Tools for Motion Design and Smarter Marketing
Canva just announced two new acquisitions that are going to make life easier for designers and marketers. The company is bringing in Cavalry, a UK-based 2D animation platform, and MangoAI, a US startup focused on AI-powered video ads. These moves build directly on Canva’s push to create one complete creative space where everything works together.
If you’ve ever switched between five different apps just to add simple motion to a design or tweak a video ad based on real results, this news will feel like good timing. Cavalry and MangoAI are designed to fix exactly those pain points.
What Cavalry Adds to Canva
Cavalry is already popular with big names like Amazon, Meta, Google, and Netflix. It’s a clean, modern tool built specifically for professional motion design and 2D animation.
Canva bought Affinity last year, and that suite already handles photo editing, vectors, and layouts. Cavalry fills the missing piece — full motion capabilities. Now professional designers can stay inside one ecosystem instead of jumping to After Effects or other heavy software.
Important note: Cavalry will still be available as a standalone product for people who want to keep using it independently. At the same time, its technology will flow into the main Canva app and the Affinity suite. That means smoother animations for everyone, from casual users to full-time motion designers.
MangoAI Brings Real Smarts to Video Ads
MangoAI works with reinforcement learning — basically AI that learns from actual campaign results and keeps improving the next version of your ad. Their system helps brands create, launch, and automatically optimize short video ads in real time.
This tech will join Canva’s existing tools like MagicBrief and Canva Grow. The goal is simple: generate video content, see what performs, and let the system suggest better versions automatically. Less manual testing, faster campaigns, better results.
Two key people from MangoAI are joining Canva:
- Nirmal Govind (former Netflix VP of Data Science) becomes Canva’s first Chief Algorithms Officer.
- Vinith Misra steps in as Reinforcement Learning Lead in Canva’s Research Lab.
What Canva’s Team Is Saying
Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and COO, put it plainly: “We’re helping designers break free from bloated, expensive tools and bringing everything from vector to motion design into one powerful suite.”
Cameron Adams, co-founder and product chief, mentioned that customers have been asking for better motion graphics options. He also explained the MangoAI fit: “There’s a whole bunch that goes into creating the right video… being able to cut stuff down, repurpose content… Analyzing all of that across your campaigns is the full vision.”
Liam Fisher, head of Pro Design Marketing, added that AI should stay in the assistant role: “It’s about the craft, the creativity, a designer, and their unique attention to detail. We want to make sure we’re not taking anything away from that craft.”
Why This Actually Matters
For everyday designers and small teams:
- No more expensive subscriptions to multiple pro tools
- Motion design becomes accessible without a steep learning curve
- Everything lives in one familiar Canva workspace
For marketing teams and brands:
- Video ads that improve themselves based on real performance data
- Faster turnaround from idea to published campaign
- Less time spent on repetitive testing
Canva already has 265 million monthly active users and 31 million paid subscribers. The company hit $4 billion in annualized revenue last year, up 36% from the year before. These acquisitions keep the momentum going and make the platform even stickier for both hobbyists and enterprise users.
Canva’s Bigger Picture
This isn’t Canva’s first acquisition. Affinity brought professional editing power, MagicBrief helped with briefs and campaigns, and now Cavalry and MangoAI complete the motion and marketing intelligence side. The company has quietly built a full Creative OS that works for beginners and pros alike.
While Adobe still leads in some high-end areas, Canva keeps chipping away by making professional features more affordable and easier to use. The timing is interesting too — software stocks are facing pressure over AI worries, but Canva continues to grow fast and buy smart.
What This Really Means
If you design, animate, or run marketing campaigns, these changes will start showing up in Canva over the coming months. Motion tools will feel more powerful, and AI marketing features will get genuinely smarter instead of just faster.
Canva keeps proving that big creative software doesn’t have to be complicated or overpriced. With Cavalry and MangoAI now on board, the gap between “good enough” and “professional” just got a lot smaller.
What do you think — ready to try motion design inside Canva, or still sticking with your current setup? Drop a comment below.
