Figma Inc. began in 2012 when Dylan Field and Evan Wallace, computer science students at Brown University, started building a web-based graphics editor. Their goal was to bring the collaborative capabilities of Google Docs to visual design, allowing multiple users to edit the same file simultaneously without local installations. The technical foundation relied on WebGL and WebAssembly to render vector graphics with hardware acceleration directly in the browser. By December 2015, the team launched an invite-only preview program, followed by the first public release on September 27, 2016. This early focus on real-time collaboration set Figma apart from traditional desktop applications that required heavy software installs for every user involved in the product development process.
The Adobe Deal and Regulatory Blockade
On September 15, 2022, Adobe announced an agreement to acquire Figma for approximately $20 billion, split roughly evenly between cash and stock. This transaction represented Adobe’s largest acquisition to date, with co-founder Dylan Field expected to remain as CEO reporting to David Wadhwani. The deal faced immediate scrutiny because Adobe had previously moved its own competitor, Adobe XD, into maintenance mode, raising antitrust concerns about market dominance. Regulators in the UK, Europe, and the US investigated whether the merger would substantially lessen competition in collaborative product-design software. The UK Competition and Markets Authority concluded that Figma was a significant competitive constraint on Adobe’s offerings, while the European Commission opened formal proceedings in August 2023. After fifteen months of review, both companies mutually terminated the agreement on December 18, 2023, citing no clear path to regulatory approval. Adobe paid Figma a $1 billion reverse breakup fee as required by the initial contract terms.
Independent Growth and Public Listing
Following the failed acquisition, Figma continued to expand its product suite independently, launching Dev Mode in June 2023 to help developers translate designs into code faster. In May 2025, the company introduced four new major product lines at Config 2025: Figma Sites for AI-driven website publishing, Figma Make for prompt-to-code generation powered by Anthropic’s Claude model, Figma Buzz for marketing content creation, and Figma Draw for advanced vector illustration. These additions allowed users to generate functional prototypes and interactive UIs by entering text prompts describing their requirements. Figma filed confidential paperwork for an IPO in April 2025 and formally listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker FIG on July 31, 2025. Shares opened at $85 and closed the day with a market value of $56.3 billion after more than tripling the IPO price. However, the share price has since dropped below $20, reducing the market value to less than $10 billion by June 2026. The company acquired Israeli AI startup Weavy for over $200 million in October 2025, rebranding it as Figma Weave to enhance image and video editing tools. With 13 million users by 2025, Figma now operates as a standalone platform with over 3,000 plugins and desktop apps supporting offline work for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Did the initial valuation of $20 billion accurately predict the long-term value of a browser-native design tool?
