Canva has acquired outdoor advertising firm Doohly in a deal reported to be worth around $30 million.
The acquisition signals Canva’s ambition to move beyond its core design platform and embed itself into the advertising landscape, particularly in the digital out-of-home (DOOH) market.
Doohly specialises in software, created to manage and deliver advertising on digital billboards and outdoor screens. By bringing these capabilities in house, Canva is positioning itself a more seamless end-to-end experience platform for its users.
The move reflects a broader trend of creative platforms acquiring media buying and distribution companies in an effort to streamline workflows and maximise profitable channels.
Although Canva is built on accessible, easy to use design tools, it is seen to be increasingly target larger businesses, adding features adding to its feature offering allowing for campaign execution at scale. Expanding into DOOH gives the tech company another touchpoint for users, particularly as businesses seek more efficient, integrated ways to manage multi-channel campaigns.
This is the most recent of Canva’s acquisitions following MagicBrief, MangoAI and Calvary in a bid to position the company as a one-stop-shop for all marketing needs.
Each recent acquisition addresses its own gap in Canvas tool set moving from a design platform to a full campaign execution. Calvary brings animation and high-end motion design, MangoAI provides AI-powered optimisation and MagicBrief focuses on competitive insights and ad insights. Notably, B&T’s Women Leading Tech Woman of the Year for 2026 Maddie King works at MagicBrief. King is now product marketing manager at Canva.
Together, these acquisitions signal an organisational shift to become an intelligence, creative and distribution ecosystems and transition into the AI era in order to remain competitive in the rapidly evolving tech industry.
As reported in the Australian Financial Review Canva said: “We’ve helped millions of individuals and teams create content faster, stay on brand, and scale their output with ease. Now, we’re taking it further by powering the entire marketing and content lifecycle, from ideation and creation to deployment, measurement, and optimisation,”
“Doohly [have] built a strong platform loved by customers globally, building on our recent acquisitions of MagicBrief and MangoAI.”
