Adobe Drops $20B Acquisition of Collaborative Design Platform Figma

UPDATE: Adobe said today that it's abandoning its acquisition of Figma due to pushback from regulators around the globe.

"Since the announcement, the deal has been undergoing regulatory review by various agencies: the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK, the European Commission in Europe — who both have objections to the transaction — and the Department of Justice in the US," says David Wadhwani, SVP and general manager of Adobe's Digital Media business.

"Unfortunately, after over a year of engagement with these agencies, both companies agree that there is not a clear path to receiving the necessary regulatory approvals and have agreed to mutually terminate the merger agreement," he says.

Last month, UK regulators "provisionally found the deal will eliminate competition between these two key competitors in the following three software markets: product design; image editing; and illustration." Without the merger, however, "Figma would continue to take steps to develop or expand products that threatened Adobe’s position in image editing and illustration."

According to The New York Times, Adobe will incur a $1 billion breakup fee.

Original Story 9/15/22:
Adobe is acquiring the interface design company Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock.

Figma is a collaborative web application primarily used for designing user interfaces and user experiences, but last year also introduced a digital whiteboard with access to sticky notes, emojis, and drawing tools. Figma was created to allow a team of people to come together online and work through a design together, and Adobe clearly saw the benefits of adding it to the Creative Cloud.

Shantanu Narayen, chairman and CEO, Adobe believes, "The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity." Adobe specifically points to "an increasing number of stakeholders" being involved in the creation process and that Figma makes that close collaboration easier.

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Posting on the Figma blog, Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO said, "There’s such an opportunity (and need!) to make design and developer tools more collaborative and accessible ... I believe we can reach this goal substantially faster through our plan to join forces with Adobe and leveraging their legendary team plus decades of expertise."

Field sees this as an opportunity to incorporate Adobe's imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D, and font technology into Figma, and points out that the deal will see Figma continue to operate autonomously. "We plan to continue to run Figma the way we have always run Figma — continuing to do what we believe is best for our community, our culture and our business," Field said.

Adobe expects the acquisition to be completed in 2023. Approximately $10 billion is being paid cash and the other $10 billion in stock. An additional six million restricted stock units are being granted to Figma's CEO and employees, which vest over four years. Based on that and Field's comments, it seems Figma customers (which include Google), don't need to worry about the platform changing any time soon.

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