Adobe Acquires Collaborative Design Platform Figma for $20 Billion

pcmag.com:

Adobe is acquiring the interface design company Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock.

Figma is a collaborative web application primarily used for designing user interfaces and user experiences, but last year also introduced a digital whiteboard with access to sticky notes, emojis, and drawing tools. Figma was created to allow a team of people to come together online and work through a design together, and Adobe clearly saw the benefits of adding it to the Creative Cloud.

Shantanu Narayen, chairman and CEO, Adobe believes, "The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity." Adobe specifically points to "an increasing number of stakeholders" being involved in the creation process and that Figma makes that close collaboration easier.

Posting on the Figma blog(Opens in a new window), Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO said, "There’s such an opportunity (and need!) to make design and developer tools more collaborative and accessible ... I believe we can reach this goal substantially faster through our plan to join forces with Adobe and leveraging their legendary team plus decades of expertise."

Field sees this as an opportunity to incorporate Adobe's imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D, and font technology into Figma, and points out that the deal will see Figma continue to operate autonomously. "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," Field said.

Adobe expects the acquisition to be completed in 2023(Opens in a new window). Approximately $10 billion is being paid cash and the other $10 billion in stock. An additional six million