Having announced its acquisition of Figma recently, Adobe is working to close the $20bn deal. Reports say this acquisition will be complete in the year 2023. The deal will put $20 billion (cash and stocks) in the hands of Figma’s founders.
Since its founding in 2012, Figma has become a “design household name.” One feature that makes it both unique and a pain in the neck of most creatives is its accessibility. Users of the platform do not need to buy or download software, as all designs on Figma take place on the web.
Figma, unlike other design products from the likes of Adobe, is relatively free-to-use, hence amassing users. Over 4 million designers from across the world have come to embrace Figma as a creative tool. Throughout Figma’s growth, Adobe has been watching, and now it wants some of the attention.
A few months ago, Adobe launched a web version of Photoshop. After this launch, some graphics designers pondered what a web version of Adobe XD (Figma’s direct competition) would feel like. But Adobe had other plans up its sleeves.
Launching a web version of Adobe XD might have been a good idea. But, making it free to use like Figma would be detrimental to Adobe’s business revenue model. So, instead of fighting the competition, Adobe swallowed it in a buyout.
This Figma acquisition is a clever way to give other Adobe digital creative applications room to breathe in a competitive industry. On its website, Figma has a page dedicated to telling users why their service is better than Adobe XD. With Adobe’s Figma acquisition, that page might now highlight the benefit both platforms offer. Also, once the acquisition is complete, Figma says it will integrate some Adobe tools onto its platform.
While the team at Figma expresses optimism that their operations will carry on independent of Adobe’s interference, many designers are pessimistic about Figma’s future under Adobe.
There are concerns that the Figma acquisition will bring a lot of changes to the platform in the coming years. Others posit that these changes will affect how users interact with the design platform and that users may struggle with embracing potential changes, like accessibility. Adobe is known to have a paywall for most, if not all its software.
Whether these concerns are simply about user adaptability or a bigger fear of free versus paid access and Figma going into oblivion under Adobe like many big corp acquisitions, time will tell.
