---
title: "Adobe → Figma"
url: "https://mahouse.world/ma-deals/adobe-buy-figma-2022"
type: "M&A deal"
year: "2022"
---

# Adobe → Figma

Adobe's $20bn agreed purchase of Figma, the browser-based design tool that was taking share from Adobe XD, was dropped in December 2023 after UK and EU regulators provisionally concluded it would remove a current rival and a likely future one — a leading case of a deal stopped over lost innovation, which cost Adobe $1bn.

Abandoned in December 2023 after the European Commission and UK CMA signalled no clear path to approval, with a $1bn break fee.

- **Acquirer:** Adobe (United States)
- **Target:** Figma (United States)
- **Value:** $20B
- **Announced:** September 2022
- **Outcome:** Terminated
- **Sector:** Technology
- **Deal type:** acquisition

## Why it mattered

Figma, founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace, built collaborative interface design into the web browser. Its private valuation rose from more than $2bn in April 2020 to $10bn by the end of May 2021. Adobe, the largest supplier of image-editing and illustration software through Photoshop and Illustrator, competed with it through Adobe XD. On 15 September 2022 Adobe agreed to pay about $20bn, roughly half in cash and half in shares — about 50 times the more than $400m of annual recurring revenue Figma expected to reach by the end of 2022. Adobe's shares fell 17%.

The US Department of Justice investigated, but the decisive reviews were European: sixteen countries referred the deal to the European Commission under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation; it was notified on 30 June 2023 and sent to an in-depth investigation on 7 August. The Commission's statement of objections on 17 November called it a possible "reverse killer acquisition": Adobe XD and any successor would be discontinued, and Figma would be removed as a likely challenger to Illustrator and Photoshop. The UK Competition and Markets Authority's provisional findings on 28 November agreed, noting that around 80% of the professional product design market used Figma and that Adobe had abandoned a new design product as a consequence of the merger. The companies signed a termination agreement on 17 December.

## What it left behind

Adobe booked the $1bn termination fee as an operating expense in the quarter to March 2024, without a tax deduction, and the term loan of up to $3.5bn it had arranged for the cash portion was terminated undrawn. Figma listed on the New York Stock Exchange on 31 July 2025 after pricing its shares at $33, and closed its first day at $115.50. Revenue reached $1.056bn in 2025, up 41%, and rose 48% to $370.1m in the second quarter of 2026. What the case teaches is that a buyer's own conduct becomes evidence: when an acquirer shelves a competing product while a purchase is pending, reviewers will treat that as proof of the competition the deal would remove.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/adobe-figma-deal-could-harm-uk-digital-design-sector