Adobe Inc will buy startup Figma for about $20 billion in its biggest-ever deal, the Photoshop maker said on Thursday, stockpiling apps that support online collaboration amid a global shift toward hybrid working.
The cash-and-stock deal will give Adobe ownership of a company whose online collaboration platform for designs and brainstorming is used by companies ranging from Zoom Video Communications to AirBnB to Coinbase.
The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformative and will accelerate our vision of collaborative creativity,” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said in a statement.
Adobe has sharpened its focus in the collaboration tools space in recent years through acquisitions. It acquired work management platform Workfront in 2020 and cloud-based video collaboration platform Frame.io last year.
Still, shares fell 13% in early trading. Some analysts pointed to the size of the deal that could require Adobe to raise debt. The company had cash and cash equivalents of $3.87 billion as of September 2.
2022-09-15