VENDORiQ: Adobe to Acquire Figma

The Latest

11 October 2022: Adobe will acquire Cloud-based design platform Figma for US$20 billion in a bid to capture the latter’s total addressable market, which is projected to grow to $16.5 billion by 2025. The deal is expected to be completed in 2023.

Why it’s Important

Adobe has been on an acquisition spree of leading startups in the past years with the likes of Magento, Marketo, Frame.io, ContentCal, Abstract Notebooks and Workfront. The planned acquisition of Figma, which is Adobe’s largest to date, is a strategic move to catch up on what its competitors have been offering, that Adobe XD cannot – a collaborative workspace where users rely on a single source of truth.

This means that the acquisition of Figma will push Adobe XD (or at least most of its features) to obsolescence, and non-Figma users will have to get acquainted with the application. On the other hand, Adobe has also been known to integrate new tools to its existing lineup and then push the acquired application to obscurity, so it could still keep its former competitors’ users through its product suite. In this case, it is the Figma community that has favoured the tool’s simplicity over Adobe’s very robust features. Although this may not come too soon, as Adobe has only renamed Magento since its acquisition, instead of shelving the tool for good.

For Figma users that are on the free subscription, this may also mean that Adobe will soon shut down their unlimited access and force them to start paying a monthly fee after their trial expires.

Who’s impacted

• CEO
• Procurement teams
• Design teams

What’s Next?

When procuring a digital business process automation solution, pay attention to local support channels and the costs associated with gaining experienced, local implementation partners.

Additional Reading

• VENDORiQ: Adobe to Acquire Workfront for USD$1.5 billion
• Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures: What does it mean to your business?
• Software licensing tactics: Delay, delay, pay, pay