Figma

Dylan Field and Evan Wallace began working on Figma in 2012 while studying computer science at Brown University. The original idea behind Figma was to create simple, free tools that would allow anyone to be creative in a browser. The original pitch deck for Figma had only a few real slides the rest of Figmas pitch was mostly comprised of demos of the various web-based graphics editing tools they had built, such as an interactive 3D sphere in a pool of water, a simplified version of Photoshop on the browser, poisson blending, image matting, color changing and more. Figma raised this $3.8M seed round in 2013 before building a real product and raised the following $14M Series A while still pre-revenue. Figmas first product was their flagship web-based UI design software, before branching out to other collaborative web-based tools such as FigJam, Figma Slides, and more. In total as of 2024, Figma has raised $749M from investors over 8 rounds and supports over 4 million active users. Adobe was supposed to acquire Figma for $20 billion in a deal announced in 2022, but the acquisition fell through due to regulatory pressure. At the time, Figma was expected to surpass $400M ARR, earning 90 gross margins.