Tech unicorn Canva buys AI firm Simtheory, marketing outfit Ortto, founded by startup veterans who sold Stayz
Design platform Canva has snapped up two business founded by startup veterans Chris and Mike Sharkey as it cements its status as an artificial intelligence tech titan.
Design platform Canva has snapped up two businesses founded by startup veterans Chris and Mike Sharkey as it cements its status as an artificial intelligence tech titan.
Canva, the WA-born online design and publishing tool that valued itself at $US42 billion ($60b) in an employee share sale last August, announced the purchase of Simtheory and Ortto for an undisclosed sum on Thursday.
Simtheory is an AI collaboration and agent management platform, while Ortto is a customer data and marketing automation company.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Canva said the purchase advanced its ongoing plan to “become the system where teams do their best work from start to finish”.
“This acquisition marks an important step toward evolving Canva from a design tool into the system where work happens end-to-end, whether it’s a quick idea or a full campaign,” Canva co-founder and chief operations officer Cliff Obrecht said.
“Simtheory accelerates our evolution from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design and productivity tools at its core.
“Ortto strengthens our ability to power the entire marketing and content lifecycle.
“This builds on our recent acquisitions of MagicBrief, MangoAI and Doohly, and we’ve only scratched the surface of the opportunity here.”
The Sharkey brothers, who pocketed millions selling online accommodation portal Stayz to Fairfax Media in 2005, will join Canva in leadership roles.
It comes as AI’s rapid advance prompts a wave of redundancies, with tens of thousands of jobs axed at fellow Australian tech darling Atlassian, US-based AfterPay owner Block and Sydney-based logistics software company WiseTech Global.
Canva, which was founded in a Dianella loungeroom but is now Sydney-based, claims on its website to have more than 220 million monthly active users across 190 countries, and is believed to have bumped its IPO plans from this year to 2027.
Mr Obrecht and other co-founders Melanie Perkins and Cameron Adams rank fifth, sixth and 22nd in The Australian’s Richest 250 list.
