Adobe’s Acquisition of Figma to Usher in a New Era of Collaborative Creativity and Design

In a recent announcement, Adobe said it would acquire Figma, the design software firm. For $20 billion in cash and stock. Adobe is reportedly letting Figma operate autonomously for now, and Figma is to run the same as before.

Adobe's Chairperson and CEO, Shantanu Narayen, says, "Adobe's greatness has been constructed on our capacity to create new categories and supply modern technology via natural innovation and inorganic acquisitions. Adobe and Figma's collaboration is transformative, and it'll boost up our vision of collaborative creativity".

For years, Adobe is changing the world with its revolutionary innovations. Adobe continues to invent and reshape categories. From a new paradigm of creativity with Photoshop. To transforming electronic documents through PDF. And internet-based marketing with Adobe Experience Cloud.

It’s likely Adobe will incorporate features from other products—photography, illustration, and video technology—into Figma.

"We could re-explore product design in the browser with Adobe's incredible expertise, particularly in 3D, video, and imaging. We can also build new tools and spaces to allow customers to make the complete process faster and simpler, "said Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma.

Adobe is ubiquitous. Especially in professional image processing. But Figma has its own band of dedicated users. Mainly because Figma is cloud-based, has multi-player workflows that make collaboration easy. It has sophisticated design systems and a rich, extensible developer ecosystem. And is reasonably priced.

Figma has capabilities for marketing teams to create, compare, and test their creative assets. It acts as a catalyst for a brand’s effective digital presence management.

Adobe’s cloud-based move towards its design platform, Adobe XD, was not as enthusiastically received as hoped. Adobe is predominantly a desktop-first application company. So, we expect the Figma acquisition to play on each other’s strengths.

By their very nature, the creative production process is often the drag on marketing velocity. Figma’s collaborative features considerably reduce the time to delivery. Marketers find they are able to launch higher velocity campaigns.

Dylan Field, Figma CEO, says Figma will remain separate and not form part of the Adobe Suite. Adobe does not expect to integrate Figma until sometime in 2023.

It’s unlikely Adobe is looking at Figma as a purely financial investment. We are quite sure some form of integration is being worked out. It’s too early to say what the contours and pricing of the combined offering would be.

Watch this space.