Figma’s Record-Breaking Sale to Adobe Delivers Billions to Top VCs
Early investors in the design software startup each ended up with at least $2 billion.
Danny Rimer first invested in Figma in 2012, shortly after the company was established and began developing software tools for designers. Rimer, a partner at the venture capital firm Index Ventures, invited Figma’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Dylan Field, to dinner and ordered a bottle of wine to celebrate the deal. It was then that the young entrepreneur hesitated. “Danny, I’m 19,” Field said. Rimer went ahead, he recalled, and ordered the Pinot anyway.
On Thursday, Adobe Inc. said it will buy Figma in a deal valued at about $20 billion — the largest exit of a privately held, VC-backed startup in at least 20 years, according to PitchBook data. Field, 30, is now of legal drinking age in the US, and both he and Rimer stand to make a lot of money from the sale.