Adobe to Acquire Figma for $20 Billion

Adobe press release:

Today, Adobe announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. The combination of Adobe and Figma will usher in a new era of collaborative creativity. [...]

Figma’s mission is to help teams collaborate visually and make design accessible to all. Founded by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace in 2012, the company pioneered product design on the web. Today, it is making it possible for everyone who designs interactive mobile and web applications to collaborate through multi-player workflows, sophisticated design systems and a rich, extensible developer ecosystem. Figma has attracted a new generation of millions of designers and developers and a loyal student following.

Figma’s breakthrough is that it was the first web-app to establish itself as a leading tool for professional designers. It’s hard to overstate how profoundly Figma disrupted Adobe’s status as the undisputed leader in design tools, because Figma made collaboration a first-class part of its workflow. Adobe has had many competitors over the decades, but Figma was the first that seemingly was reducing Adobe’s relevance to professional designers. I don’t think this acquisition was driven by revenue so much as by relevance.

Now, well, Adobe’s status goes back to undisputed. I’m sure they won’t screw Figma up.

★ Thursday, 15 September 2022