Figma: Collaborative Design Tool Ready for IPO

Figma was founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace with the vision to create a fully collaborative, browser-based design tool. Since its public launch in 2016, the company has seen unstoppable growth, with its platform becoming a staple for design teams, at everything from start-ups to some of the largest companies in the world. After an attempted acquisition by Adobe in 2022, Figma shifted its focus and has now taken the first step toward debuting on the public markets. Let's dive into Figma's journey so far and what potentially lies ahead.

• Thiel Fellowship: Figma's co-founder, Dylan Field, received the prestigious Thiel Fellowship in 2012, which provided him with $100,000 to drop out of college and pursue his vision, eventually founding Figma.

• Adobe's acquisition attempt: In 2022, Adobe attempted to acquire Figma for $20 billion, but the deal was blocked after regulatory scrutiny.

• IPO potentially approaching: With a confidential S-1 filing in April 2025, Figma has officially taken the first step toward a potential IPO.

Before diving into the history and business of Figma, it's worth stating up front: Figma is at the core of all design work here at Quartr. Both our mobile app and Quartr Pro are designed in Figma, and all of our website and social media visuals are created using it. Simply put – we love the product.

With that said, let's take a closer look at how Figma grew from a college project to one of the world's most utilized design tools.

Figma's story begins with Dylan Field and Evan Wallace, two students at Brown University who left college in 2012 to pursue a shared vision: building a fully browser-based design tool that anyone could use, from anywhere, without the hassle of file-sharing and desktop installs.

Field had been awarded a Thiel Fellowship – a $100,000 grant created by entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal and early Facebook backer) to encourage young people to build companies instead of finishing college. With Wallace's engineering expertise and Field's product intuition, the pair moved to San Francisco and began building what would eventually become Figma.

The vision wasn't fully clear at the beginning, though, with early experiments ranging from 3D content generation to photo editing and segmentation tools. But as they shadowed designers and product teams across the tech industry, they kept returning to the same problem: collaboration in design was clunky, fragmented, and offline. Designers were stuck passing files back and forth via email and cloud storage, risking version mix-ups and lost feedback.

Figma set out to solve that by making the entire process collaborative and web-based from the start, bringing interface design into the same real-time workflow people had come to expect from tools like Google Docs.

After years of development, Figma launched publicly in 2016. What began as a bold idea from two college students quickly gained traction with designers and developers alike. With a simple link, teams could now work together on the same file in real time – no installs, no handoffs.

Growth took off for the platform, and in just a few years, it had landed over a million customers with notable clients including Uber, Microsoft, and Airbnb. Its value to creative teams worldwide was undeniable to the point where the largest company in the industry came knocking on its door.

By the early 2020s, Figma had become the go-to platform for collaborative, web-based design, something Adobe, the long-standing giant in creative software, struggled to compete with. While Adobe had launched its own tool, Adobe XD, it never gained the same traction as the newcomer platform.

In 2022, Adobe asserted its power as the $150 billion leader in the industry, announcing its plans to acquire Figma for $20 billion in cash and stock – a bold attempt to regain ground in the collaborative design space.

However, the proposed deal was met with intense regulatory scrutiny, with authorities in the U.S., UK, and EU raising concerns that the merger could reduce competition and innovation. After months of review, Adobe and Figma mutually agreed to walk away from the deal in late 2023. In early 2024, Adobe confirmed it would no longer invest in Adobe XD – the very product Figma was meant to replace.

In an interview months after the deal had broken down, Dylan Field (who remains CEO to this day) hinted at the route for Figma going forward:

Reflecting on the events, Adobe's decision to target Figma was certainly justified, given the company's success leading up to and following the attempted acquisition. Now, let's dive into the details that made Figma so attractive to Adobe and how they've evolved since.

Since its public launch, Figma has continued its momentum, which accelerated further during the pandemic as remote work made real-time collaboration even more powerful. Its browser-based nature and ease of sharing made it a natural fit for distributed design teams, leading to rapid adoption across industries. Today, Figma's customer list includes major global players such as Alphabet, Netflix, Salesforce, Spotify, to name a few. Notably, 85% of its users are based outside the U.S.

Figma operates on a classic SaaS model, where its revenue comes from tiered subscription plans, with pricing that scales based on usage and team size. The basic tier is free for individual users, while professional and enterprise plans are priced per user, encouraging team expansion and deep product integration over time.

According to Dylan Field, in early 2024, the company had been “cash flow positive for a while” (The Verge, 2024). At that time, Figma surpassed $600 million in annual recurring revenue, up 40% from 2022, demonstrating its financial growth and the widening adoption of the platform.

As alluded to by Field, Figma's venture-backed nature made an IPO the likely outcome once the Adobe acquisition was blocked. “We explored thoroughly the acquisition route,” Field noted, and with that door closed, going public became the clear path forward.

Figma's ownership is dominated by major venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz, Durable Capital, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia Capital, reinforcing the momentum toward a public listing. Field himself is said to hold around 10% of the company, with co-founder Evan Wallace and early employees holding smaller stakes.

In April 2025, Figma filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC, formally initiating the IPO process. While the filing keeps specific details like valuation and timing under wraps, it marks a significant step toward a market debut.

The announcement came amid ongoing market volatility, including renewed concerns around global tariffs. But with the first formal step now taken, Figma's transition to a public company is clearly underway.

With its confidential S-1 filing in place since mid-April 2025, Figma's IPO is likely approaching, though exact details remain uncertain. As the company has not yet filed a public S-1, the timing and specifics of its market debut are still to be determined. Figma intends to list its shares on a U.S. stock exchange, but it remains to be seen whether it will choose the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or Nasdaq.

It is important to note that the company will likely monitor market conditions closely. Should unfavorable conditions arise, Figma has the option to pause or delay its IPO process.

In terms of valuation, Figma has seen rapid growth over the past few years, with a notable peak during the Adobe acquisition attempt. In 2019, Figma was valued at approximately $440 million. By its Series E round in 2021, that figure had risen to $10 billion.

The valuation peaked at $20 billion in 2022 when Adobe attempted to acquire the company. In 2024, following a tender offer that allowed employees and early investors to sell their stakes, Figma's valuation was reported at $12.5 billion. Should the company proceed with its IPO, it is likely to target a valuation slightly higher than this last round, though the final figure remains to be seen.

Figma's journey from a college project to a globally adopted design platform has been a standout story in today's software landscape. With loyal users and a product that has become one of the most beloved tools in modern tech, it now stands at the edge of its next chapter. As it prepares to go public, Figma is getting ready to add a new layer to its success.