On July 31, 2025, American design software giant Figma went public on the New York Stock Exchange, with its stock price skyrocketing 250% on the first day and a market value of $56.3 billion (approximately RMB 400 billion), becoming the largest and highest rising technology IPO in the US stock market in 2025. Its issue price was $33 and closing price was $115.5, with a single day increase surpassing all venture backed companies since 2021. This performance even exceeds Adobe’s proposed acquisition price of $20 billion, highlighting the market’s fervent pursuit of its AI strategy
The entrepreneurial story of founder Dylan Field (born in 1992) can be considered a classic in Silicon Valley. In 2012, he dropped out of Brown University and founded Figma with a $100000 scholarship from Peter Thiel, with the goal of bringing Photoshop to the browser. The initial product was on the brink of bankruptcy due to a vague business model, but the wave of remote work in 2020 led to the explosion of collaborative design tools, with annual revenue reaching $75 million
Nowadays, Figma has served 450000 paying customers, including giants such as Netflix and Microsoft, and 95% of Fortune 500 companies rely on its platform
Figma regards AI as its growth core, with the term ‘AI’ appearing over 150 times in the prospectus. Its tools such as Figma Make can generate interactive prototypes through natural language, greatly reducing the design threshold; Figma Draw uses AI to automatically complete tedious tasks such as vector editing and background removal
In Q1 2025, the company’s revenue was $228 million (a year-on-year increase of 46%), net profit was $44.9 million, and 1031 major customers paid over $100000 annually. Analysts believe that AI driven efficiency innovation is the key to its soaring valuation
Figma’s capital operations are equally avant-garde: holding a $70 million Bitcoin ETF and planning to issue the world’s first “blockchain common stock” to explore the combination of equity and cryptocurrency technology. Founder Field had an early interest in cryptocurrency, which was seen as his long-term bet on Web3. In addition, the company holds $1.2 billion in IPO funds and may initiate larger scale mergers and acquisitions
Despite its impressive performance, some analysts have warned of the risk of “irrational exuberance” in its first day gains. Figma needs to demonstrate that AI tools can expand beyond designers, such as product managers and developers, and maintain high growth to match valuations. Competitor Adobe has accelerated AI integration, while Figma’s profitability remains a test of whether it can support a market value of $56.3 billion
The IPO of Figma marks the victory of the AI+SaaS model and confirms the Silicon Valley myth of “small teams disrupting giants”. From a dropout to a market value of 400 billion, Dylan Field’s 13 year entrepreneurial journey is a microcosm of technological change and capital waves. In the future, the expansion and commercialization capabilities of its AI ecosystem will determine whether this carnival can continue
