Canva has acquired two Australian-founded technology companies in a deal designed to accelerate its transformation from a design platform into an end-to-end AI work system, as the $60 billion company navigates one of the most turbulent periods in enterprise software history.
The Sydney-based design giant has bought Simtheory, an AI collaboration and agent management platform, and Ortto, a customer data and marketing automation company, for an undisclosed amount of money.
The moves come at a time when AI companies are soaring on public markets but traditional software firms are being punished and Canva, which is in the long run-up to an eventual listing, is trying to persuade the world that it belongs in the former camp.
The deals land one week before Canva Create, the company’s flashy annual event where more than 5000 people will gather at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on April 16 for an event chief executive Melanie Perkins has told investors will mark “the most significant moment in Canva’s history”.
Simtheory enables teams to build AI assistants, collaborate across tasks and applications, and deploy agentic systems. Ortto combines a customer data platform with marketing automation across email, SMS, push notifications and in-app messaging.
Both companies were founded by Chris Sharkey, who previously co-founded online booking site Stayz, and his brother Mike Sharkey. Mike Sharkey said he was excited by the chance to bring the company’s tools to more people via an acquiring firm that shared their values.
Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht told this masthead the Simtheory acquisition would let the company roll out AI tools faster. “We could’ve built something similar over time, but getting these capabilities into our customers’ hands faster really matters,” said Obrecht, Canva’s chief operating officer.
The acquisitions extend a buying spree by Canva that has taken in Leonardo.AI, MagicBrief, Affinity, Cavalry, Doohly and MangoAI in recent years. The purchases, along with several products developed in-house, have helped to transform Canva from a graphic design company into one selling numerous productivity tools.
Canva is now asserting it belongs alongside Microsoft and Google as one of only three genuine full productivity suites. “We’re now used by more than 95 per cent of the Fortune 500, and our fastest-growing use cases are all in workplace productivity,” Obrecht said. “Presentations are our fastest-growing category with more than 4 billion created to date.”
The company is also facing existential questions about what its AI ambitions mean for the designers, marketers and content professionals whose work the platform increasingly automates.
Other major technology companies – Atlassian, WiseTech, Block, and others – have faced significant backlash over AI-driven workforce reductions, while Canva has avoided such layoffs to date. “We see AI as an opportunity to do even more, not as a cost-cutting exercise,” Obrecht said. “The volume of content our community needs to create is growing incredibly quickly. AI helps meet that demand, but it doesn’t replace the need for human creativity and judgment.”
The global software sector is being battered by what analysts are calling the “SaaSpocalypse” – a brutal repricing of enterprise software businesses as investors grapple with whether AI will hollow out the recurring-revenue models underpinning sector valuations.
Atlassian recently laid off 10 per cent of its workforce and its market capitalisation has plunged to $26 billion, with its share price down 65 per cent from $US183 to $US64 ($260 to $90) over the past 12 months.
Since listing last July, shares in Canva rival Figma are down roughly 80 per cent, while Google’s recently released AI design product Stitch – which lets companies build websites and apps from plain-language descriptions – has also triggered sell-offs in Figma and fellow Canva rival Adobe.
Canva says it’s in a strong position having finished last year with $US4 billion in annualised revenue – a measure used by technology companies that reflects their last month’s earnings multiplied by 12 – and more than 265 million active monthly users.
The company, widely seen as Australia’s most successful tech start-up, is continuing its march towards an initial public offering which is expected to make instant millionaires of some of its 5500-odd employees.
Speculation has settled on 2027 as the most likely window for the IPO, likely on the NASDAQ in the US. The company has tapped chief financial officer Kelly Steckelberg – the executive who successfully navigated Zoom through its blockbuster IPO – to prepare for its public debut.
“It’s on the horizon, but we don’t have any news to break on this front,” Obrecht said.
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David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.
