The deal, which was first negotiated during the COVID-19 pandemic’s boom in tech investment and announced in September 2022, would have valued Figma at roughly 50 times its annual recurring revenue, and double its last private funding round in 2021. By Jess Weatherbed, a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site’s Terms of Service. Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space. Google Pixel 8 devices made in India start rolling off the production lines just ahead of the Pixel 9 launch.
Adobe gives up on $20 billion acquisition of Figma
It racked up around 18,000 users, made 8,000 matches, and gathered a lot of insights on the current dating scene. The deal definitely lays down the gauntlet for other big names in the world of digital design. Specifically it will be interesting to see what comes next for companies like Canva and Sketch. These are the kinds of reactions — from their target community — that are a strong signal to Adobe and Figma to definitely keep an eye on how they integrate and take their users along to whatever the next step is. The companies were expected to appear in front of the CMA to contest the regulator’s provisional findings on Thursday this week.
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It’s a big day for our teams at Adobe and Figma as we announce our plan to come together. We want to share “the why” behind this decision and our excitement for what this means for our respective products and communities. The deal marks Adobe’s largest acquisition since buying marketing automation software company Marketo in September 2018 for $4.75 billion. Adobe’s last major acquisition was a $1.2 billion takeover of collaborative video editing and review software maker Frame.io in August 2021. The deal doubles the valuation that the San Francisco-based startup landed in June 2021, when it raised $200 million from investors including Durable Capital and Morgan Stanley. Forbes estimates that Field and Wallace each hold a 10% stake in the company that would now be valued at $2 billion.
Adobe snaps up Figma for $20B, taking out one of its biggest rivals in digital design
“The last thing that anyone wants is to disrupt either one of our roadmaps,” Belsky said. That means no plans to bring Figma inside of Creative Cloud and no changes to Figma’s pricing, according to Belsky. No offering of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Field and Wallace met while studying computer science at Brown University and decided to start a company together. Field took a Thiel Fellowship and dropped out of college in 2012 to begin building what would become Figma.
- Figma has been branded the Google Docs, or GitHub, for designers with a loyal user base in the millions paying between $12 or $45 per editor for its digital whiteboard product.
- Kazam, an Indian EV charging solution provider, has raised $8 million to expand its footprint in the country and enter Southeast Asian markets.
- By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds.
- Adobe’s technology and Figma’s platform also allow us to reimagine creative segments beyond product design.
The productivity tools of the future will be web-based, multi-player, and infused with a new generation of capabilities for creative expression that Adobe is uniquely positioned to provide. Figma, with their introduction of FigJam, entered the exciting (and dynamic!) whiteboarding and ideation space. By bringing together capabilities for brainstorming, content creation and collaboration, we have an opportunity to provide communicators, knowledge workers, and creators with a new generation of productivity tools.
By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. Headquartered in San Jose, California, and with a diverse global population of more than 26,000 employees, Adobe achieved revenue of US$15.79 billion in fiscal 2021. Previously, Iain worked as the Asia Editor for the Hong Kong bureau of news startup Storyful prior to joining Forbes in 2019, and studied Law at Durham University, and journalism at Cardiff University. Kazam, an Indian EV charging solution provider, has raised $8 million to expand its footprint in the country and enter Southeast Asian markets.
Adobe forecasts that Figma would double its annual recurring revenue to $400 million in 2022. Adobe’s also making this acquisition during a time when the regulatory bodies are getting more serious about cracking down on big tech mergers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed to block Meta’s acquisition of the company behind VR fitness app Supernatural in July, for example, and sued to block Nvidia’s now-scrapped acquisition of Arm in November. FTC spokesperson Betsy Lordan said the FTC doesn’t comment on proposed transactions, and Department of Justice spokesperson Arlen Morales declined to comment.
Figma has been branded the Google Docs, or GitHub, for designers with a loyal user base in the millions paying between $12 or $45 per editor for its digital whiteboard product. Hours later, the two companies issued a mutual statement terminating the merger, citing the regulatory challenges. Adobe will pay Figma $1 billion in a termination fee under the terms of the merger agreement. “We plan to continue to run Figma the way we have always run Figma — continuing to do what we believe is best for our community, our culture and our business,” explains Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma. “Adobe is deeply committed to keeping Figma operating autonomously.” Field will continue to serve as CEO and report to Adobe president David Wadhwani. Figma’s independence is a point they have been underscoring repeatedly; a LinkedIn post from Belsky and a blog post from Figma CEO Dylan Field both mentioned that the plan is for Figma to continue operating autonomously.
The company is acquiring the online collaborative design platform Figma for roughly $20 billion in cash and shares. That’s the largest buyout of a private software company to date, according to Bloomberg’s Katie Roof. Adobe hopes the deal will “accelerate” web creativity and put more of the Creative Cloud suite’s technology on the internet. You can expect to see Adobe’s visual editing features find their way into Figma’s platform. Design and prototyping, for individuals and teams, executed in a very streamlined and modern, cloud-based environment, are Figma’s product strengths, and it’s amassed some 4 million users to date.
Adobe’s DNA is in design, though, and it has built out iconic products in areas like imaging (such as Photoshop), fonts, illustration, video and 3D and more. Adobe has been winding down its investment in Adobe XD, its competing design platform for things like apps and websites, and XD users could be nudged over to Figma in the future, according to Belsky. “It was never because we didn’t think product design and development and this vertically integrated stack was a big opportunity,” he said. “Once [the acquisition] closes, then we’ll figure out how to serve those customers, likely with Figma,” he said. Figma has built a phenomenal team, product and community and we want to preserve this.
“Any developers in that community being acquired by Adobe will likely be stifled, as their objectives are realigned to what’s good for Adobe. Ultimately that can only reduce the choice available for creatives,” Ashley Hewson, managing director of Affinity developer Serif, said in an emailed statement. Figma CEO and cofounder Field will continue to lead the company when the deal closes in 2023.
Dylan Field and Evan Wallace started building design startup Figma to challenge Adobe’s PhotoShop. Now Adobe has made them billionaires after announcing it would acquire Figma for $20 billion in a cash and shares deal. Field stressed in a blog post that Adobe was “deeply committed” to keeping Figma an autonomous company. There’s “no plan” at the moment to change Figma’s pricing, and it will remain free for education users.
In connection with the proposed acquisition of Figma, Adobe will file a registration statement on Form S-4 with the SEC to register the shares of Adobe common stock to be issued in connection with the proposed transaction. The registration statement will include a consent solicitation statement/prospectus, which will be sent to the stockholders of Figma seeking their approval of the proposed transaction. As one of the largest and most diversified software companies in the world, Adobe enables everyone — including students, creative artists, small businesses, government agencies, and the largest global brands — to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences. The two firms expect the purchase to close sometime in 2023 if it receives approval from regulators and shareholders. Figma co-founder and chief Dylan Field will continue to lead his company if and when the takeover finalizes, but will report to Adobe’s digital media lead David Wadhwani. Adobe has abandoned its proposed $20 billion acquisition of product design software company Figma, as there was “no clear path to receive necessary regulatory approvals” from UK and EU watchdogs.
It’s big news in the design and development world, particularly as Figma has been competing heavily with Adobe’s XD products in recent years. Regulators cited Adobe’s near-monopoly in the design software market as they pushed back on the deal. By purchasing Figma, a fast-growing product design platform that’s now more popular than Adobe’s rival XD application, regulators worried that Adobe would harm innovation that could have occurred should Figma be allowed to flourish independently.
When users click on an event on Polymarket, they will now see a summary of news related to the event based on search results from Perplexity. With gross margins of approximately 90 percent and positive operating cash flows, Figma has built an efficient, high-growth business,” it said. Competition regulators around the world have sent mixed signals over the aspirations of Big Tech groups hoping to acquire promising start-ups and potential rivals, at a time when public markets have been largely closed to new listings. / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we’ve tested sent to your inbox weekly. As a result, product design has emerged as a uniquely collaborative discipline, driven by powerful design systems and a rich, extensible ecosystem.
Early backers of the startup included Index Ventures, Greylock Partners and Phoenix Court. Adobe’s acquisition of the hot design startup Figma will value cofounder Dylan Field’s 10% stake at over $2 billion. The idea now will be to create a seamless connection between these and Figma, essentially building it out as the native platform to bring them all together. Adobe hasn’t detailed its long-term vision or plans yet, but the company is holding a conference call with investors at 7AM PT / 10AM ET this morning, so we might get a better idea of Adobe’s plans later today. In a letter dated December 14th, Adobe rejected remedies suggested by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to approve the merger following an in-depth antitrust probe.
Adobe’s technology and Figma’s platform also allow us to reimagine creative segments beyond product design. Together, we can make the future of imaging, photography, illustration, video and 3D more accessible and more collaborative than ever before. It bought the video collaboration platform Frame.io in 2021, and has been making moves into web-based tools with offerings like Creative Cloud Express.