Adobe announced today that it will pay €20 billion in cash and stock to acquire Figma, a web-based collaborative design platform. Figma will be integrated into Adobe's larger family of products and will continue to operate independently until the deal closes.
The €20bn figure is a substantial boost to the valuation of Figma, which was valued at €10bn in its last funding round in 2021. The company was founded in 2012 and Adobe said it had since developed a dedicated following. between developers. Figma offers a wide range of collaboration options for joint software development, as well as the popular FigJam collaborative whiteboard environment.
“As creativity becomes increasingly collaborative, the web makes it easier for teams to create together,” David Wadhwani, executive vice president and chief business officer of digital media at Adobe, said during the company's third-quarter results conference call. company. "Figma's web-based multiplayer platform can accelerate the delivery of Adobe's Creative Cloud technologies to the web, making the creative process accessible to more people."
It's a potential coup for Adobe, according to Wayne Kurtzman, IDC's vice president of community and collaboration research. The growing importance of visual collaboration is a key market driver for Adobe, and buying Figma is "exactly the right move," he said.
“We are starting to see disruptive changes in the collaboration and workflow markets, and this is one of them,” Kurtzman said. "Their challenge is to not only enhance their products with these capabilities, but also to leverage the vision of the Figma collaboration that made them valuable in the first place."
Adobe also highlighted Figma's strong profitability on its earnings call, praising the company for its expected addition of more than €200 million in net annual recurring revenue, surpassing the €400 million mark by the end of fiscal 2022.
“With a total addressable market of €16.5 billion by 2025, Figma is just getting started,” Wadhwani said.
The transaction, which has not yet been approved by Figma shareholders, is still subject to their approval and customary closing conditions. Approximately half of the total price will be paid in Adobe stock and the rest will be paid in cash. Adobe said it expects the transaction to close in 2023.
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