👨‍🎨 Atlassian's Figma fling
The Aussie tech giant has invested in Figma after Adobe's failed bid to buy the company. Between Figma and Canva, design tech is flourishing — which is great news for Mike Cannon-Brookes.
Canva is the biggest design tech startup this year to let employees cash out with an equity sale ahead of a bonanza IPO, but it’s not the only one. Figma, an interface design company that Adobe tried and failed to buy last year, is also letting employees and investors sell their holdings — and Atlassian is buying.
The original Australian tech giant confirmed to Capital Brief that it had participated in Figma’s secondary stock sale, which reportedly valued the startup at USD12.5 billion ($18.8 billion). Atlassian did not disclose the size of its Figma investment.
“Our mission is to unleash the potential of every team,” an Atlassian spokesperson said. “Our investment in Figma is another example of our commitment to creating great teamwork by bringing product, design and developer experience close together.”
Atlassian is an existing customer of Figma, having integrated the app into its Jira issue tracker and collaborative document editing tool Confluence. Collaboration is one of Figma’s selling points, letting multiple designers work on the same product, which jives with Atlassian’s work-from-anywhere approach.
