Both companies were founded by brothers Chris and Mike Sharkey, who previously co-founded Australian vacation rental site Stayz. Financial terms were not disclosed. Canva will preview what it calls the biggest transformation in its history at Canva Create on April 16.
canva has acquired two companies simultaneously: simulation theoryan AI agent collaboration platform, and Orthoa customer data platform and marketing automation company.
Both were created by Australian brothers Chris and Mike Sharkey, who will join Canva in leadership roles in its marketing technology and artificial intelligence teams. Financial terms were not disclosed for either deal.
The Sharkeys are serial founders. Prior to Ortto and Simtheory, they co-founded Stayz, then Australia’s largest holiday accommodation booking site, which was sold to Fairfax Digital in 2006 and subsequently to HomeAway for $225 million in 2013.
Ortto itself has a longer lineage: It started as Autopilot, a marketing automation company the brothers founded in 2015, was rebuilt from the ground up after 2018, and rebranded as Ortto in March 2022.
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Simtheory grew out of an AI podcast the Sharkeys launched in 2023 to explore new AI models and capabilities; The tools they built to produce the program evolved into a multi-model AI workspace for teams.
The two acquisitions serve different parts of Canva’s platform ambitions. Simtheory offers an agent AI infrastructure: its platform allows teams to create AI assistants that understand their business context, coordinate tasks and applications, and complete work with the reliability and auditability that businesses require.
Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and COO of Canva, said exclusively to TNW that “In a world where generating ideas is easier than ever, the challenge has shifted to turning those ideas into real, usable work.
We are excited to welcome Simtheory to Canva as we evolve from a design platform with AI tools to an AI platform with design and productivity tools. “They have created great agent technology that we hope to bring to the 250 million people who use Canva every month.”
Ortto addresses the end of the marketing lifecycle of Canva’s ambitions. The platform combines a customer data platform with multi-channel marketing automation, allowing teams to create and execute journeys through email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messages, forms and surveys from a single system.
It uses an event-driven architecture and no-code integrations to connect and activate customer data in real time.
The company has more than 11,000 clients in 190 countries. The acquisition feeds Canva Grow, Canva’s marketing product, and follows three previous additions in the same direction: Brief Magicacquired in January 2025; MangoAI, acquired in February 2026 for AI-powered video ad optimization; and Doohly, acquired in March 2026 for outdoor digital advertising.
Canva, launched in 2013 and based in Sydney, is used by more than 265 million people each month and ended 2025 with more than $4 billion in annualized revenue.
Mike Sharkey, CEO of Ortto and Simtheory, said the scale of Canva’s user base was the central draw: “The opportunity to bring our technology to the 250 million people who use Canva each month and help more people make the most of AI in their daily work is incredibly exciting for us.”
