Design Software Firm Figma Soars 183% To $93.5 In Strong Nyse Debut

Design software start-up Figma soared 183% to $93.5 in strong NYSE debut. Figma priced its initial public offering at $33 a share, above the expected range of $30 to $32 a share.

Figma had set an initial range of $25 to $28 before boosting it.

“Figma’s IPO is a bellwether event for the tech sector,” said Derek Hernandez, senior analyst of emerging technology at PitchBook. Hernandez described Figma as a “generational” software as a service company “that has achieved a near-monopolistic hold on the product design market.”

Figma’s high-profile backers represent a Who’s Who list of prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firms, including big investments from Index Ventures, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Sequoia Capital.

The numbers are solid, too. Figma’s sales surged 48% to $749 million in 2024. Revenue rose another 46% in the first quarter of this year. But Figma has alternated between profitability and red ink in the past two years, posting net income of $737.8 million in 2023 and a net loss of $732.1 million last year. (Figma’s 2023 profit was inflated by a $1 billion merger termination fee from Adobe.) Figma reported a profit of $44.9 million in the first quarter of this year, however.

Investors may also be intrigued by the fact that Figma, like companies such as MicroStrategy, GameStop, Tesla, and Trump Media & Technology Group, has adopted a Bitcoin investment strategy. With Bitcoin trading around $118,000 and not far from its all-time high, Figma’s crypto investment could give it a further boost.

Figma has a stake in the Bitwise Bitcoin exchange-traded fund that was worth $69.5 million as of March 31, up from its initial investment of $55 million from March 2024. The company also said in regulatory filings that it bought $30 million’s worth of USD Coin, the stablecoin backed by Circle, in May. Figma said that it “intends to re-invest its stablecoin holdings into Bitcoin at a later date.”

Still, even if Figma enjoys a big pop on its opening day, there are big challenges ahead. One analyst noted that the increased use of generative artificial intelligence technology threatens to disrupt the business model for Figma. Worries about AI are one reason Adobe’s stock has struggled lately as well.

“It’s clearly a rock-solid business now, but there may be questions over what impact the advent of AI might have on its future margins,” said Samuel Kerr, head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket.

“Are Figma’s numbers solid enough at this stage of the AI lifecycle and its disruptive impact to offset the risk it might pose in the future? That’s the question they will likely be asking themselves when looking at this IPO,” Kerr added.