Adobe said on Thursday that it has acquired collaborative design tool Figma for about $20 billion, marking its largest purchase to date. With the global shift to hybrid working, Adobe is expanding its portfolio of tools that allow online collaboration.
With the cash and equity transaction, Adobe will become the owner of a business whose online collaborative platform for ideas and design is used by companies including Zoom Video Communications, AirBnB, and Coinbase.
“The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity,” Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen said in a statement.
Through acquisitions, Adobe has centered its focus in recent years on the collaboration tools market. It bought the cloud-based video collaboration platform Frame.io last year and the work management platform Workfront in 2020.
“We’re disappointed for the price paid for the company (Figma),” said David Wagner, portfolio manager and equity analyst at Aptus Capital Advisors which owns a 1.5% stake in Adobe.
“It tends to not be a great sign when a company has to acquire to defend share. It’s not a sustainable solution.”
Figma, based in San Francisco, will continue to be run by co-founder and CEO Dylan Field after the deal, which is expected to close in 2023, according to TechCrunch. If the acquisition is canceled, each company will be required to pay a $1 billion termination fee.
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