Figma Confidentailly Files For IPO After Adobe Deal Collapses (cnbc.com) 19
Figma has confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC, marking a major move more than a year after scrapping its $20 billion acquisition deal with Adobe due to regulatory pushback. CNBC reports: Figma's software is popular among designers inside companies who need to collaborate on prototypes for websites and apps. The company was valued at $12.5 billion in a 2024 tender offer. "There are two paths that venture-funded startups go down," Dylan Field, Figma's co-founder and CEO, said in an interview with The Verge last year. "You either get acquired or you go public. And we explored thoroughly the acquisition route."
The announcement lands at a precarious moment for the tech IPO market, which has been largely dormant since late 2021. The Trump presidency was expected to revive new offerings due to promises of less burdensome regulations.
The announcement lands at a precarious moment for the tech IPO market, which has been largely dormant since late 2021. The Trump presidency was expected to revive new offerings due to promises of less burdensome regulations.
RIP (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You say that with such confidentce.
There are two paths (Score:2)
> There are two paths that venture-funded startups go down. You either get acquired or you go public.
Both leads to enshittification.
Re: (Score:2)
The third path is bankruptcy and failure. Is that better?
Re: (Score:2)
Sometimes.
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If it unlocks the fourth path (good company that offer good products because there's actual competition), yes.
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Unfortunately, that path closes the moment you get venture capital funding. Once you have those investors sink their hooks in, it's toast.
At what price? (Score:2)
"The Trump presidency was expected to revive new offerings due to promises of less burdensome regulations. "
Oh? So that demented presidency is going revive new offerings on the weakening environmental and financial regulations. 'tis a nice way to socialize the costs onto the American public for the screwups this will engender.
Funding (Score:1)
What about income from paying customers? Too crazy?
Re: (Score:2)
You don't become a billionaire on revenue alone. You become a billionaire by selling to a billionaire through M&A, or by selling to multiple billionaires and a whole lot of millionaires on the public stock market.
How do you expect the founders to land a shedload of other people's money through monthly invoicing?
Figma is going to disappear. (Score:4, Interesting)
Figma barely has a business case. Anything still left is being snacked up by AI or will eventually be replaced by open source software.
With UI design tools it's just like with Editors or Web Toolkits. There is always some hype-cycle that pushes the tool that then quickly gets replaced by the next fad: Sketch - Adobe XD - Invision - Figma ... whatever. Meanwhile folks who have chosen and stayed with Inkscape and Object Libraries or Penpot will do so until the end of their days and save the money and hassle.
I don't even use UI designers anymore, I build right in the web these days. The UI libs are all there already and you can integrate them just as quick as drawing the element. I might copy the occasional SVG object into my components, but that's because Inkscape is a neat vector drawing tool for the custom stuff. For everything else I don't even need it anymore.
Re:Figma is going to disappear. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, some of us stick with our UI tools.
All my Microsoft Frontpage work is going great.
if i owned Figma (Score:2)
"Confidentailly". BeauHD, how drunk were you? (Score:2)
You are alleged to be an editor, and you can't even manage the little squiggly red lines under a word that tells you it's probably not a word.
I can manage that even when I'm not legally allowed to WALK anywhere. Do you guys get paid, or do you have to pay to be "editors"?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm more puzzled at how one can file for an IPO "confidentially" at all. If it were truly confidential, then how could we be reading about it on slashdot?
BTW, "slashdot" also has a squiggly red line as I post this. Perhaps we have become inured to it.
Re: (Score:2)
I added Slashdot to my Mozilla dictionary years ago, along with a bunch of technical terms which really ought to be in there but aren't...
there's a reason behind this (Score:1)