Adobe announced that it will acquire Figma for $20 billion, thus acquiring one of its biggest competitors in the digital design sector.
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earnings , respectively. However, the company said it may need to finance the deal with a loan. Its stock is trading down nearly 10% before the market opens — a sign that Adobe was likely hoping the news of the merger and acquisition of a rival could give it a boost.
The acquisition comes in the form of a half-cash, half- stock deal , Adobe said, and will also include 6 million additional restricted stock units granted to Figma’s CEO and employees that will vest over four years after closing. It is expected to close in 2023, “ subject to the receipt of required regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions, including Figma shareholder approval .”
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Design and prototyping, for individuals and teams, run in a much improved and modern cloud-, are the strengths of Figma’s product and it has amassed around 4 million users to date. Meanwhile, Adobe has been building and acquiring a number of businesses in the wider world of digital creation, and this has led it not only to the broader and more general spectrum of design, but also to marketing and other areas adjacent to design in the larger chain of creation. DNA is design however and it has created iconic products in areas such as visualization (like Photoshop), fonts, illustration, video and 3D and more.
The idea now will be to create a seamless connection between these and Figma, essentially making it the native platform to bring them all together. Adobe, of course, already had something like that, in the form of Adobe XD. It is not clear what will happen with this when this deal closes.
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The deal certainly shines a spotlight on the other big names in the digital design world. In particular, it will be interesting to see what comes next for companies like Canva and Sketch.
