Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Creative digital technology giant, Adobe, will no longer acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for $20 billion in cash and stock, 15 months after the deal was announced due to the hesitation of regulators to approve the transaction.
Business Post reported in September 2022 that when approved, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design, and inspire global communities of creators, designers, and developers.
This appears not to be the issue at hand as Mr Dylan Field, the co-founder and CEO of Figma, said in a blog post on Monday that, “Figma and Adobe have reached a joint decision to end our pending acquisition.”
According to Mr Field, who had been pegged to continue leading the Figma team under Mr David Wadhwani, president of Adobe’s Digital Media business after the acquisition, “Despite thousands of hours spent with regulators around the world detailing differences between our businesses, our products, and the markets we serve, we no longer see a path toward regulatory approval of the deal.”
He noted that both companies will continue as independent entities with Figma “excited to find ways to partner for our users.”
The Figma CEO said moving forward, the company will be banking on the shift from a physical economy to a digital economy and to see how it can bank on huge advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to boost its businesses and offerings.
“We want to make it easy for anyone to design and build digital products on a single multiplayer canvas—from start to finish, idea to production. I’m so excited for what the future holds and beyond grateful to our community for supporting us. Figma’s best, most innovative days are still ahead. See you all in 2024!” the blog post concluded.
Figma has a total addressable market of $16.5 billion by 2025. The company was expected to have surpassed $400 million in total Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) exiting 2022, with best-in-class net Dollar retention of greater than 150 per cent. With gross margins of approximately 90 per cent and positive operating cash flows, Figma has built an efficient, high-growth business.
