What Happened
Canva acquired Sydney-founded Simtheory and Ortto, its fifth and sixth acquisitions in 10 months. Deal terms were not disclosed.
Simtheory: AI collaboration platform that lets enterprise teams build custom assistants within their own cloud systems. Integrates with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google models. Connects to email, CRM, and document creation tools.
Ortto: Marketing automation platform serving 11,000+ customers across 190 countries. Unifies customer data and runs multi-channel campaigns. Founded in 2015.
Both companies were founded by brothers Chris and Mike Sharkey, previously co-founders of Stayz. They are joining Canva in AI and marketing leadership roles.
Why It Matters for Sales
Canva is moving from design tool to AI-powered work platform. That means competition for traditional sales enablement and marketing automation vendors.
The Simtheory acquisition brings AI agents that can read emails, update CRMs, and create documents. That is sales automation territory. The Ortto acquisition adds customer data platform capabilities and campaign management. That is marketing ops and sales ops territory.
For sales teams already using Canva for presentations and collateral, this could mean consolidating tools. For marketing automation vendors selling into ANZ, this is a new competitor with $4 billion in revenue and 265 million monthly users.
The Broader Context
Canva has been on an acquisition spree: MagicBrief, MangoAI, Doohly ($30 million), and now these two. The company hit $4 billion in annualized revenue by end of 2025. Still privately held, no recent funding rounds disclosed.
COO Cliff Obrecht called the Sharkey brothers "exactly the kind of founders we love partnering with." Both acquisitions are Sydney-based, keeping talent local.
Canva competes with Adobe, Figma, and Microsoft Designer in design. Now it is moving into marketing automation (Ortto vs. HubSpot, Marketo) and AI assistants (Simtheory vs. sales AI tools).
What We Don't Know
Canva has not disclosed its sales team structure, headcount, or key sales leadership. Deal valuations were not shared. No word on how these tools will be priced or packaged for enterprise buyers.
For now, watch how Canva positions these capabilities to enterprise sales teams. If they bundle Ortto-level marketing automation into existing plans, that changes the competitive landscape for sales enablement platforms.