This year is starting to become the year of major acquisitions. We’ve seen Microsoft starting the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard, Sony acquiring Bungie and now Adobe is entering the fray as well.
The company has announced its intention to purchase collaborative design platform Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock. While Figma has been the darling of the digital design community for many years, this announcement has drawn incredibly critical reactions.
The Figma Design sub-Reddit is littered with memes criticising the acquisition, and offering up alternatives. The same is happening over on Twitter and anywhere else designers meet online. There are of course concerns that Figma’s free tier will no longer be available or be heavily stripped down. Adobe hasn’t announced its plans for the platform aside from vague statements about improving the capabilities of both Figma and Adobe software.
figma: we are the fun, independent way to design :)
adobe: what about $20,000,000,000
figma: ok fine— juan (@juanbuis) September 15, 2022
Adobe only expects the deal to be complete in 2023 and it is subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions so this deal could come crashing down.
“Upon the closing of the transaction, Dylan Field, Figma’s co-founder and CEO, will continue to lead the Figma team, reporting to David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media business. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently,” Adobe said in a press release.
Co-founder and chief executive officer at Figma, Dylan Field did his best to allay fears that massive changes were afoot but his blog post really doesn’t do much to assure users that the Figma they have grown to love will remain the same.
With that having been said, Field did state that becoming part of Adobe would improve its platform.
“There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space. For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology to the Figma platform. Additionally, we will have the opportunity to reimagine what the best creative tools could look like within the Figma technology stack,” writes Figma’s co-founder.
While we recognise the critique from the design community, $20 billion is a lot of money and we applaud Figma for making an application so valuable Adobe is willing to spend that to acquire it.
