Under the shadow of tariffs, software rising star Figma aims to land on the US stock market, expected to reignite the IPO boom in the US
Design software company Figma has secretly submitted an IPO application for the U.S. stock market, despite facing challenges from tariff policies. Figma's valuation is approximately $12.5 billion, and the application for listing is expected to reignite investor enthusiasm in the U.S. IPO market. After the failure of its merger plan with Adobe, the company continues to grow and launch new tools to enhance product usability. The number of Figma employees has increased from 500 in 2022 to 1,600, demonstrating its ongoing growth momentum
According to the Zhitong Finance APP, Figma, a startup software company focused on application design and collaborative software development, has secretly submitted its initial public offering (IPO) application to the U.S. stock market. This comes over a year after its merger plan with American software giant Adobe, the developer of popular creative software such as Photoshop and Illustrator, fell through. The San Francisco-based software company announced on its blog on Tuesday that it has submitted a draft registration statement for listing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Figma was valued at approximately $12.5 billion in a round of financing in 2024.
Figma, regarded as one of the strongest new forces in the global software industry, is applying for a listing on the U.S. stock market at this moment, which is expected to reignite global investor enthusiasm for the U.S. IPO market and may even spark a new wave of investment in U.S. tech stocks such as Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia, which have been caught in a selling wave. Currently, U.S. President Trump's aggressive reciprocal tariff policy has led to a fundraising paralysis in the U.S. IPO market, leaving Wall Street investment banks struggling. The listing plans of star tech companies such as Klarna Group Plc, Chime, Cerebras Systems, and eToro Group Ltd. have all been paused, as these companies have announced a temporary halt to their U.S. IPO processes.
It is understood that Figma, which focuses on application and website design software and collaborative software development, has maintained its growth momentum even after terminating its "century merger" with Adobe at the end of 2023 due to antitrust pressure from regulators. Figma has since focused on enhancing the practicality of its existing products for software engineers and web/platform designers, with a focus on launching a software tool ecosystem called "Developer Mode" to facilitate collaboration between professional software developers and web/platform designers.
According to a company spokesperson last month, Figma's employee count has grown significantly from 500 at the beginning of 2022 to 1,600.
Public information shows that the U.S.-based startup software company Figma provides a range of software tool ecosystems that are crucial for designers and software developers, meeting the needs of increasingly diverse application scenarios.
For example, Figma Design is primarily used for creating, sharing, and testing designs for digital products such as websites and mobile applications, supporting real-time collaboration; FigJam is an online whiteboard tool platform suitable for brainstorming, meeting notes, and flowchart creation; Dev Mode aims to simplify collaboration between design and development, helping web and platform designers and senior software developers communicate more efficiently on projects; Figma Slides is mainly used to assist in creating presentations, supporting seamless integration with design files, covering automatic layouts to advanced properties, making presentation design more professional and efficient.
With the rise of remote work and cross-department collaboration, the demand for design collaboration tools continues to grow strongly. The real-time collaboration and cloud platform features of Figma's software give it a significant competitive advantage in the design tool market. The aforementioned software products collectively form Figma's design collaboration software ecosystem, widely used in UI/UX design, product management, application development, and marketing As of 2024, Figma has over 4 million users, with its B-end clients including well-known tech companies such as Microsoft, social platform X, Dropbox, Stripe, Slack, and GitHub. In June 2024, Figma's ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) reached $700 million, a year-on-year increase of 35%. With its continuously innovative product ecosystem, strong user base, and ongoing market expansion, Figma's performance is expected to continue to grow rapidly in the coming years