Adobe announced its intent to buy Figma in a deal valued at about $20 billion in September last year.
American multinational software company Adobe will need to win the European Union antitrust approval for its deal to acquire Figma, a design software company. The move highlights the regulators’ worries about a big tech company acquiring smaller rivals to lessen competition.
According to a Reuters report, Adobe originally sought approval from Austria and Germany’s antitrust agencies, and subsequently the former referred the case to the European Commission. Apart from the two countries, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden had asked the commission to review the deal.
The competition regulators have instructed that the Shantanu Narayen-led company cannot implement the transaction before notifying and obtaining clearance from the European Commission. The Reuters report noted that Adobe is engaged in discussions with regulators in the U.S., U.K., and EU, among other regions. The company expects to close the transaction this year, it added.
In September last year, Adobe announced its intent to buy Figma in a deal valued at about $20 billion, a move that would wipe out its biggest rivals in the realm. The deal was reportedly a mix of half cash and half stock, marking it as the biggest-ever takeover of a private software company.
Figma was founded by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace in 2012 and has pioneered product design since then. Users liked the simplicity of Figma as a design tool. The software’s usage saw a jump during the pandemic as more people worked remotely, allowing customers to collaborate on software. Figma has over four million users, and it is backed by companies including Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, and Greylock Partners.
