About a year and a half after Adobe’s attempted $20 billion acquisition of design software unicorn Figma collapsed, Figma has taken a step towards a new future in the public markets.
On Tuesday, when the company filed paperwork to go public on the New York Stock Exchange, in a prospectus larded with more than 200 references to AI, Figma set the stage for one of the most anticipated IPOs of 2025.
The San Francisco-based company, which will trade under the ticker “FIG”, did not provide details of how much it expects to raise in the offering or the valuation it is seeking. But its S-1 filing comes at a moment when the market for venture-backed IPOs looks better than it has in some time, from the meteoric debuts of AI infrastructure company CoreWeave (up 290% from its IPO price) to the blowout triumph of stablecoin firm Circle (up 519%).
As Figma moves to capitalize on the bullish conditions for new issuers, a key question for its venture investors and employees is whether it can top the $20 billion valuation that Adobe was prepared to pay for it before the deal fell through due to intractable regulatory resistance, particularly in the U.K. A tender offer that Figma organized last year for employees to cash out some shares, valued the company at $12.5 billion.
And as investors chomp at the bit for opportunities to ride the AI wave, Figma must make the case that it can harness the power of generative AI to tap into new growth without itself becoming a victim of AI.
“We’re already investing heavily in AI and we plan to double down even more in this area,” CEO and cofounder Dylan Field wrote in a “letter to investors” included in the prospectus. “AI spend will potentially be a drag on our efficiency for several years, but AI is also core to how design workflows will evolve going forward.”
To judge by its S-1 filing, the design company’s business is growing robustly. In Q1 2025, Figma’s revenue increased 46% to $228.2 million from $156.2 million in Q1 2024, according to the filing. Likewise, in Q1 2025, Figma’s net income hit $44.8 million, a sharp increase from $13.5 million in Q1 last year. In 2024, Figma clocked net loss of more than $700 million, an anomalous byproduct of the Adobe deal’s fallout.
The filing also revealed that Figma has 1,031 customers who put up more than $100,000 to the company’s annual recurring revenue, plus 11,107 customers who add more than $10,000 to Figma’s overall revenue. In 2024, Figma’s total revenue came in at $749 million, up year-over-year by 48%, the prospectus shows.
Figma was founded in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace, who met as students at Brown University. And the company is about as venture-backed as it gets, with many of Silicon Valley’s biggest VC names in the mix from its early days: Index Ventures led Figma’s $3.8 million seed round in 2013, Greylock led the company’s 2015 Series A, Kleiner Perkins led the 2018 Series B, Sequoia the 2019 Series C, and Andreessen Horowitz the 2020 Series D.
Looking ahead, Figma’s plans to grow include growing its customer base and expanding its international footprint—more than half of the company’s revenue already comes from outside the U.S., the filing states. Acquisitions will also be key to Figma’s near-term future, Field wrote, telling prospective investors to “expect us to take big swings when we see a chance to invest in our platforms or pursue M&A at scale.” The company’s CVC arm, Figma Ventures, and its 18 investments to date also get a shoutout in the filing.
Also in true Silicon Valley form and as is often the case for founder-led companies, Field will retain majority control of the company after the IPO, thanks to a special class of super voting shares, according to the S-1. Field currently has 75.3% voting power, including shares owned by cofounder Evan Wallace entrusted to him, though the filing did not specify what Field’s exact stake will be after the offering .
In the prospectus, Field explained his rationale for going public at a time when “many amazing companies” are staying private for longer, citing liquidity, brand awareness, and the value of capital markets access. He added: “More importantly, I like the idea of our community sharing in the ownership of Figma—and the best way to do that is through the public markets.”
