On July 31, 2025, the online collaborative design platform Figma officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the largest IPO project in the US stock market so far this year.
The issue price of Figma was $33 per share, and the stock price soared after the opening, finally closing at $115.5, an increase of 250%. Based on the closing price, Figma's market value reached $56.3 billion, approximately 400 billion yuan. This is not only the most dazzling IPO in the US stock market in 2025, but also called the largest tech company listing event supported by US venture capital since 2021.
This company, founded in 2012 by millennial founder Dylan Field during his college years, was established when he dropped out of Brown University in his sophomore year and received a $100,000 "Thiel Fellowship" from famous investor Peter Thiel, then co-founded Figma with classmate Evan Wallace, aiming to move graphic design tools to the cloud, directly competing with established giants like Adobe.
Initially, Figma's development was not smooth—product positioning was unclear, the business model was vague, and coupled with severe staff turnover, it once fell into difficulty. It was not until 2016 that it officially launched its first collaborative design tool, quickly accumulating users as a free "Adobe alternative," and gradually establishing a dominant position in the field of design collaboration.
What really made Figma famous was a Microsoft acquisition—Microsoft's acquisition of Xamarin, whose hundreds of designers happened to be early users of Figma. Since then, Figma has rapidly spread throughout the tech circle and experienced explosive growth in 2020 with the rise of remote work, reaching a revenue of $75 million that year.
Entering the AI era, Figma continues to bet on new technologies, launching AI-driven "Figma Make 2.0" and generative design tools, achieving the function of generating product prototypes with a single natural language input. The term "AI" appeared more than 200 times in its prospectus, becoming an important storyline of this IPO.
According to the prospectus, Figma's revenue in 2024 was $749 million, a year-on-year increase of 48%; in the first quarter of 2025, revenue reached $228 million, with a net profit of $44.9 million. The number of large customers is also growing rapidly, with 1031 enterprise customers paying over $100,000 annually, an increase of 47% from last year, including tech giants like Netflix, Stripe, and Duolingo.
This IPO also brought huge returns to the founders and investment institutions. Dylan Field holds 56.6 million shares and controls another 26.7 million shares of voting rights, making him the largest individual shareholder. He will sell 2.35 million shares in the IPO, cashing in approximately $77 million. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Field's current personal wealth has reached $6.1 billion.
Among institutional investors, Index Ventures is the largest institutional shareholder, holding 17%; Greylock Partners holds 16%, while KPCB and Sequoia Capital hold 14% and 8.7%, respectively. These VC/PE institutions have continuously increased their investments over more than a decade of Figma's development, with an overall return rate exceeding 10 times.
Figma's listing has also reignited enthusiasm in the US IPO market. In the second quarter of 2025, 59 companies completed IPOs in the US stock market, raising a total of $15 billion, far exceeding the first quarter. Recently listed hot new stocks like Circle and CoreWeave also performed strongly, injecting confidence into the market.
In the Chinese market, according to statistics from the Zero2IPO Research Center, a total of 109 Chinese companies listed domestically and abroad in the first half of 2025, with initial financing totaling more than 120 billion yuan, and both the A-share and Hong Kong stock markets were equally active.
Analysts point out that Figma's successful listing not only brings a wealth effect but also provides a long-missed "exit window" for primary market investors. Against the backdrop of many years of IPO contraction, the listing of such super unicorns brings real cash-out opportunities for VCs/PEs.
Of course, not all companies can participate in this IPO feast. Those who stand on the bell-ringing stage are the ones who outperform in niche tracks and adhere to long-termism. After the capital winter, those who truly realize their paper wealth are ultimately few.
