Image: © Katherine Welles/Stock.adobe.com
Capabilities from Adobe’s imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology will be brought into the Figma platform.
California-headquartered software giant Adobe is planning to acquire Figma, a web-based design platform to boost its creative collaboration tech offering.
As well as its design platform, Figma also has a digital whiteboard product called FigJam. The company’s software is used by companies such as Airbnb, Google and Netflix to design their websites. It was founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace. The San-Franciscan start-up raised $50m in Series D funding in 2020, in a round led by Peter Levine and Marc Andreessen at Andreessen Horowitz.
Adobe announced today (15 September) that it had entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire the company for approximately $20bn in cash and stock.
The software player is known for its suite of creative tools called Adobe Creative Cloud. The suite includes platforms for video editing software, image editing, audio editing and more.
Adobe plans to leverage Figma’s products to expand its collaboration offering for teams. “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity,” said Shantanu Narayen, chair and CEO of Adobe.
The two companies hope the merger will bring designers and developers closer together to through collaborative design. Capabilities from Adobe’s imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology will be brought into the Figma platform.
“With Adobe’s amazing innovation and expertise, especially in 3D, video, vector, imaging and fonts, we can further reimagine end-to-end product design in the browser, while building new tools and spaces to empower customers to design products faster and more easily,” said Field, CEO of Figma.
The transaction is expected to close in 2023, subject to regulatory approvals. On the closing of the deal, Field will continue to lead the Figma team. He will report to David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s digital media business. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently.
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