Figma

The deal values Figma cofounders Dylan Field and Evan Wallace's stakes in the buzzy design startup at $2 billion apiece.

Field took a Thiel Fellowship and dropped out of college in 2012 to begin building what would become Figma. Adobe’s last major acquisition was a [$1.2 billion takeover](https://blog.frame.io/2021/08/19/adobe-announces-intent-to-acquire-frameio/) of collaborative video editing and review software maker Frame.io in August 2021. “And design is a team sport—it’s collaborative by nature.” Forbes reported that the startup generated $75 million in revenue in 2020. Forbes estimates that Field and Wallace each hold a 10% stake in the company that would now be valued at $2 billion. “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”

San Francisco-based Figma, founded by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace in 2012, allows software developers and designers to collaborate remotely and design ...

[Purchase a Print subscription for 11,12 € per week You will be billed 107,91 € per month after the trial ends](https://subs.ft.com/spa3_uk3m?segmentId=461cfe95-f454-6e0b-9f7b-0800950bef25&utm_us=JJIBAX&utm_eu=WWIBEAX&utm_ca=JJIBAZ&utm_as=FIBAZ&ft-content-uuid=01c8cd15-f5b8-457a-8301-fb89413ee407) [Purchase a Digital subscription for 6,64 € per week You will be billed 39 € per month after the trial ends](https://subs.ft.com/spa3_digital?ft-content-uuid=01c8cd15-f5b8-457a-8301-fb89413ee407) [Purchase a Trial subscription for 1 € for 4 weeks You will be billed 65 € per month after the trial ends](/signup?offerId=41218b9e-c8ae-c934-43ad-71b13fcb4465&ft-content-uuid=01c8cd15-f5b8-457a-8301-fb89413ee407)

The deal is part of Adobe's push to expand its tools for virtual collaboration, design and remote production.

“Figma has built a phenomenal product design platform on the web,” said David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media business. “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.” Founded by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace in 2012, Figma pioneered product design on the web.

Hi, it's Katie and Kamaron in New York. Today, we're taking a closer look at a record-breaking software deal and rounding up a busy week of dealmaker ...

Hi, it’s Katie and Kamaron in New York. Elsewhere, there’s the latest on the flurry of football takeovers in Europe. It’s going to be a bumper edition of the Deals newsletter today and we wanted to start with a few words on our scoop that

Adobe Inc. is nearing a deal to acquire Figma, a startup that makes online design collaboration tools, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Founded in 2012, San Francisco-headquartered Figma has raised $333 million in venture funding to date, per Crunchbase data, and includes a long list of well- ...

Lastly, [Durable Capital Partners](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/durable-capital-partners) led a $200 million Series in 2021. Nor will [Andreessen Horowitz](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/andreessen-horowitz), which led a Series D in 2020. So should [Kleiner Perkins](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/kleiner-perkins-caufield-byers), which led a Series B a couple years later. [Greylock](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/greylock), which led Figma’s $14 million Series A in late 2015, should also see a massive return on investment. However, while Figma backers may be pleased with the deal, the same can’t be said for Adobe shareholders. [Sequoia Capital](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/sequoia-capital) won’t be left out either, as the firm led Figma’s 2019 Series C.

Rimer, a partner at the venture capital firm Index Ventures, invited Figma's co-founder and chief executive officer, Dylan Field, to dinner and ordered a bottle ...

Field, 30, is now of legal drinking age in the US, and both he and Rimer stand to make a lot of money from the sale. Rimer went ahead, he recalled, and ordered the Pinot anyway. [Index Ventures](/quote/1805Z:SW), invited Figma’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Dylan Field, to dinner and ordered a bottle of wine to celebrate the deal.

$20 billion Figma deal is a historic coup for startup investors in an otherwise miserable year · Just over a year after raising money at a $10 billion valuation, ...

This really was more a question of what is the best way to achieve the goal of company, which is to democratize tools for design and creation across the globe." "Figma is actually one of these rare companies that has achieved incredible escape velocity," said Narayen, Adobe's CEO since 2007. Before that, the biggest was Macromedia for $3.4 billion in 2005. [BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index](https://cloudindex.bvp.com/), forward multiples have fallen to just over 9 times revenue from about 25 in February 2021. "This was a significant threat to Adobe," Lo Toney, founding managing partner of Plexo Capital, which invests in start-ups and venture funds, told CNBC's "TechCheck" on Thursday. They include Durable Capital Partners and "The company was IPO-able. venture-backed software M&A was tracking to its worst year since 2017." Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures wrote in a Investors in the 2021 round doubled their money. Figma's cloud-based designed software has been a growing headache for Adobe over the last few years. There was no other bidder out there driving up the price, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details are confidential.

Adobe Inc will buy startup Figma for about $20 billion in its biggest deal, the Photoshop maker said on Thursday, bulking up on applications that support ...

Either company will have to pay a termination fee of $1 billion if they scrap the deal. Distribution across machines running on Windows helped Adobe gain ubiquity and the companies also sync their products across platforms. It's not a sustainable solution." The company had cash and cash equivalents of $3.87 billion as of Sept. Some analysts pointed to the size of the deal that could require Adobe to raise debt. Adobe has sharpened its focus on the collaboration tools space in recent years through acquisitions.

Adobe's $20 billion Figma deal raises eyebrows and rings antitrust bells ... Turning foes into friends. ... A burgeoning design startup will now be owned by the ...

[debuted in 2016](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/08/10/how-figma-became-designs-hottest-startup-valued-at-10billion/?sh=6f50f1a3726e), it’s been touted as an Adobe killer for being [more efficient, collaborative, and affordable](https://www.protocol.com/workplace/adobe-figma-dylan-field-user-reactions). Industry insiders, however, don’t understand the dumping. [pointed out](https://twitter.com/Vaskatta/status/1570561388581617664). 15, Adobe announced it was buying the San Francisco-based firm in a [$20 billion half-cash and half-stock deal](https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2022/Adobe-to-Acquire-Figma/default.aspx). [tweeted](https://twitter.com/amaldorai/status/1570604636524126210). The deal comes “with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space,” CEO Dylan Field [being unaffordable](https://twitter.com/4erepawko/status/1570436634419789826) and [clunky](https://twitter.com/andybudd/status/1570391834622562305). [antitrust issues](https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/15/adobe-is-buying-figma-for-20b-taking-out-one-of-its-biggest-rivals-in-digital-design/) come up and the deal doesn’t go through? 15 blogpost](https://www.figma.com/blog/a-new-collaboration-with-adobe/). [Adobe’s Instagram](https://twitter.com/nbashaw/status/1570419021211901953).” [plummeted 16%](https://seekingalpha.com/news/3883076-adobe-drops-11-on-reaction-to-20b-figma-deal-and-mixed-outlook) on the news, as well on its [mixed bag earnings results](https://www.zdnet.com/article/adobe-q2-a-mixed-bag-as-revenue-falls-short-of-estimates/). [Field’s tweet](https://twitter.com/zoink/status/1355173534390075394?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1355173534390075394%7Ctwgr%5E37eb9a89cff06141b271038df7c523973f593415%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fkinja.com%2Fembed%2Finset%2Fiframe%3Fautosize%3D1id%3Dtwitter-1355173534390075394) from Jan 29, 2021

Adobe's acquisition of a cloud-based collaboration and productivity platform for almost $20 billion reflects the accelerated demand for technology tools ...

Railroad Strike Averted as Tentative Deal Is Reached](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-railroad-strike-averted-as-white-house-unions-reach-tentative-deal-11663234424?mod=trending_now_news_2) [Transfers of Migrants Have Democratic Leaders Scrambling for Solutions](https://www.wsj.com/articles/florida-sends-50-migrants-on-planes-to-marthas-vineyard-11663253106?mod=trending_now_news_3) [Putin Says Xi Raised Concerns on Ukraine War](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-xi-jinping-and-russias-vladimir-putin-to-showcase-growing-ties-11663243097?mod=trending_now_news_4) [Saturn Ring Mystery Possibly Solved After Four Centuries of Uncertainty](https://www.wsj.com/articles/saturn-ring-mystery-possibly-solved-after-four-centuries-of-uncertainty-11663264812?mod=trending_now_news_5) The fact that Adobe was willing to pay so much for Figma reflects that belief that its software was fundamentally different, according to Mr. He said there was no question that Adobe was buying a smaller but quickly growing rival, “but if Figma was just another piece of software with a lot of growth, Adobe would not have paid so much for it,” Mr. To that end, Figma was built not as an app but as a web-based application because it is easier to share, Mr. This Team Fixed It.](https://www.wsj.com/articles/laguardia-airport-renovation-lga-terminal-b-11663203700?mod=trending_now_news_1) [U.S. Figma isn’t just built for designers, but for a range of people involved in design, and that necessitates software that is easier to use and share, he said. “The old way of building productivity tools was the way Adobe started, [and it was] only intended for use by a narrow set of people.” Figma was different from other tools because it made it easy for people in a range of technical and nontechnical roles to collaborate in the design process on one platform. Wadhwani said Figma’s next generation of collaboration and productivity tools also take inspiration from the world of gaming, in which many people are remotely participating in a task in real-time. “It is the old buying the new,” Mr. In some ways, the focus has shifted from getting actual work done at the beginning of the pandemic to building culture and collaborative relationships in remote and hybrid environments, he said. Figma itself drew inspiration from Google Docs, basing itself in the cloud so people could work in one digital space together instead of creating different versions of the same project, Mr.

Adobe announced a deal to pay $20 billion to for a $400 million software company. Here's why that big bet might payoff.

According to Danny Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures which invested in Figma in 2013, “The company was IPO-able. As Narayen said, “Software follows a sort of S curve: performance eventually moves sideways if you do not invest in the right opportunities.” Field — who will report David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s digital-media business — said that the acquisition will help Figma move faster. Were that growth rate to slow down to 80% a year between 2023 and 2028, the deal could add $13.6 billion to Adobe’s top line five years after the deal closes. The culture of the two companies strike me as compatible. Together, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design and inspire global communities of creators, designers and developers.” For example, Figma has four million subscribers — two-thirds of whom users aren’t among Adobe’s core designer customers, according to the Journal. Based on the relative scale of the two companies, that price looks exorbitant. Figma’s revenue is expected to grow at 100% between 2021 and 2022. According to the company, “Figma has attracted a new generation of millions of designers and developers and a loyal student following. As CNBC noted, “It’s cheaper (there’s even a free tier), easier to use, collaborative and modern, and has been spreading like wildfire among designers at companies big and small.” Depending on how well Adobe integrates the two companies, their combined competitive advantages could result in faster top-line growth for Adobe.

Software company Adobe is buying online design company Figma in an approximately $20 billion cash-and-stock deal.

Each company will run independently until the transaction closes. At that time, Field, who will continue to lead the Figma team, will report to David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media business. The companies said that Figma’s web-based, multi-player capabilities will accelerate the delivery of Adobe’s creative cloud technologies on the web, making the creative process more productive and accessible to more people.

Prior to announcing its intent to buy Figma for $20 billion on Thursday, Adobe's largest deal was its $4.75 billion Marketo acquisition in 2018.

Click here to find out more about our partners. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. You can select 'Manage settings' for more information and to manage your choices.

Multimedia software products maker, Adobe, buys rival Figma in a deal that expands its portfolio of collaboration tools.

“The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.” “Adobe is deeply committed to keeping Figma operating autonomously.” “The combined company will have a massive, fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders, and the industry.”

The news yesterday that Adobe is acquiring Figma is a development that makes a lot of sense.

But Forrester believes the acquisition will drive even more venture capital to flow to start-ups that are design-centric (like Airbnb and Instagram) or that themselves create tools and platforms that enable strong design work — a key pillar for great experiences for users (customers, employees, and others) that drive growth and loyalty. Wall Street disagreed yesterday (Adobe’s stock price had its largest drop in 12 years on the news) because few financial analysts understand how deeply good design affects the quality of experiences. Although Adobe entered that fray last year, with this acquisition it’s recognizing that Figma was far ahead, and that joining forces was the best way to catch up. And its Creative Cloud suite offers products for other key aspects of what design teams do that Figma does not do, such as Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as rich digital asset libraries to build on. It’s been browser-based from its inception and offers lots of “multiplayer” features specifically targeted at teams working together. Adobe’s expertise in machine learning (branded as Sensei) and automation embedded in various features across its products will help supercharge much of Figma’s rich and widely praised toolset.