Canva enters the DooH arena with the AU$30 million acquisition of Aussie software startup Doohly. The Broadsign competitor delivers an end-to-end CMS for DooH operators, with customers across the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.
$30M Deal: Canva Goes OoH with Doohly Acquisition
Canva — the platform that turned everyone into a graphic designer — has made its move into the DooH market. It has acquired fellow Australian software company Doohly for a reported AU$30 million.
Doohly is a Melbourne-based startup founded six years ago with the goal of managing the full workflow surrounding a DooH campaign — from creating the creative, to deploying it, to measuring its impact. The company has built partnerships with DooH and retail media operators mainly in Australia and New Zealand, including the Australian co-working network Work Place Media and New Zealand billboard company Lumo Digital. Doohly is also active in the UK, where one of its customers is Abode, a residential media network.
Sixth acquisition in two years
Doohly has also partnered with several other adtech companies, including DSPs, marketplaces, and verification platforms. And although its CMS is positioned as a direct competitor to Broadsign, it is connected to the Broadsign-owned SSP Place Exchange.
For Canva, with its 260 million monthly users, this marks its sixth acquisition in two years. The company — often dubbed Australia’s software poster child — achieved 35% year-over-year growth in 2025, reaching US$3.5 billion in revenue. Doohly had already been on Canva’s radar through a software integration that allowed users to access Canva directly from within Doohly’s CMS platform.
Capital Brief, which first reported on the deal, said Canva has been “systematically buying its way across the creative and marketing workflow.” Just a month ago, it announced additional acquisitions, adding animation software Cavalry and content optimization engine MangoAI to its portfolio.
Eyeing adtech-driven DooH growth
With Doohly, Canva is branching out from content creation into content playout. It’s the first content management system the company has acquired and its first piece of adtech infrastructure. Given the current investor interest in DooH and retail media, Doohly is a logical choice.
According to Startup Daily’s assessment, the AU$30 million sale is likely a major win for Doohly’s founders, Sean Law and Tom Sawkins, who raised just a AU$500,000 pre-seed round in 2024.
Canva is currently valued at around US$42 billion and is reportedly considering going public with a U.S. listing in late 2026.
