The design software world is buzzing with news that Figma has filed for its long-awaited IPO, planning to trade under the ticker symbol “FIG” on the New York Stock Exchange. But as any Sunday school graduate will tell you, figs and curses have a rather complicated biblical history—and Figma’s journey from Adobe’s $20 billion golden child to public market supplicant reads like a cautionary tale written in Silicon Valley’s most expensive ink.
When the biblical Jesus approached that leafy fig tree in Bethany, expecting fruit but finding only empty promises, his subsequent curse echoed through millennia. Today, as Figma approaches public markets with its own leafy promises of $1.5 billion in potential IPO proceeds, one can’t help but wonder if the design platform is about to discover what happens when expectations meet reality in the unforgiving wilderness of Wall Street.
The Adobe Exodus: A $1 Billion Lesson in Regulatory Humility
The story begins in 2022, when Adobe—flush with the confidence that comes from owning every creative professional’s soul through monthly subscriptions—decided to acquire Figma for a staggering $20 billion. It was the kind of deal that makes venture capitalists weep tears of pure cryptocurrency, valuing the collaborative design platform at roughly 40 times its annual revenue. For context, that’s approximately the same multiple used to value unicorn tears or Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X) promises.
But European regulators, apparently unfamiliar with the Silicon Valley principle that “disruption justifies everything,” had the audacity to suggest that Adobe buying its most promising competitor might be, well, anti-competitive. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission launched investigations with the enthusiasm of tax auditors discovering a cryptocurrency mining operation disguised as a charity in Timbktu.
Adobe, faced with the prospect of actually having to compete rather than simply acquire its competition, threw in the towel in December 2023. The termination fee? A cool $1 billion—roughly equivalent to the GDP of several small developing nations or the annual compensation budget for Meta’s AI superintelligence team.
The Curse of the Abandoned Acquisition
Here’s where the biblical parallels become uncomfortably precise. Just as the cursed fig tree withered from its roots, Figma now faces a peculiar form of corporate damnation. Adobe, spurned and $1 billion poorer, has returned to its Photoshop fortress with renewed determination to build competing tools in-house. And unlike Figma, Adobe doesn’t need to convince anyone to subscribe—they’ve already achieved the holy grail of software companies: making their products so essential that canceling feels like digital suicide.
Adobe’s response to the failed acquisition has been swift and methodical. The company has accelerated development of its own collaborative design tools, leveraging its existing Creative Cloud ecosystem and the kind of brand recognition that makes marketing departments weep with envy. When you control the tools that create 90% of the world’s digital content, building a Figma competitor isn’t disruption—it’s just a normal Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Figma finds itself in the uncomfortable position of a startup that grew up expecting to be acquired, only to discover it must now survive as an independent company in a market where its former suitor has become its most motivated competitor. It’s like breaking up with someone who then decides to open a restaurant directly across from yours, except they already own the entire food supply chain.
The IPO Filing: Lipstick on a Collaborative Pig
Figma’s S-1 filing reveals the kind of financial performance that would make any CFO reach for their emergency bottle of artisanal bourbon. The company reported $749 million in revenue for 2024, representing 48% growth—impressive until you realize this growth occurred while Adobe was distracted by regulatory proceedings rather than focused on competitive annihilation.
More telling is Figma’s net loss of $732 million in 2024, largely attributed to a “one-time charge tied to a May 2024 stock tender offer.” In Silicon Valley accounting, “one-time charges” are like “limited edition” Air Jordan sneakers—they happen with suspicious regularity and always seem to coincide with moments when companies need to explain away inconvenient financial realities.
The company’s first-quarter 2025 results show $44.9 million in net income on $228.2 million in revenue, which sounds encouraging until you consider that Adobe generates more revenue in a typical afternoon than Figma does in a quarter. It’s the difference between a lemonade stand and Coca-Cola, except the lemonade stand is valued at $12.5 billion and thinks it can compete with the global beverage empire.
The Ticker Symbol Prophecy
Perhaps most ominously, Figma has chosen “FIG” as its NYSE ticker symbol—a decision that either demonstrates remarkable biblical literacy or catastrophic symbolic blindness. In choosing to literally brand itself with the symbol of divine disappointment, Figma has achieved the rare feat of making its own IPO feel like a tragic performance art.
The symbolism is so perfect it borders on the supernatural. A company built on collaborative design, choosing to represent itself with the very fruit that, when it failed to deliver what was expected, became the subject of Christianity’s most famous agricultural curse. It’s as if Tesla had chosen “FIRE” as its ticker symbol or Facebook had gone with “PRIVACY.”
The Competitive Wasteland
Figma’s IPO prospectus mentions AI more than 200 times, which in Silicon Valley translation means “we’re desperately trying to justify our valuation by mentioning the magic word that makes investors forget about fundamentals.” But while Figma has been busy filing paperwork and explaining away losses, Adobe has been systematically integrating AI capabilities across its entire Creative Cloud ecosystem.
Adobe’s Firefly AI, already embedded in Photoshop, Illustrator, and other industry-standard tools, represents the kind of integrated innovation that comes from owning the entire creative workflow rather than just one collaborative corner of it. When your users are already paying for Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and Premiere Pro, adding collaborative design features isn’t disruption—it’s just another Tuesday’s product update.
The competitive landscape Figma now faces resembles a biblical plague of locusts, except the locusts are well-funded Adobe product teams with direct access to millions of existing Creative Cloud subscribers. Figma may have pioneered browser-based collaborative design, but Adobe has something more valuable: the gravitational pull of creative necessity.
The Public Market Reckoning
As Figma prepares for its public debut, the company faces the unique challenge of convincing investors that it can thrive independently in a market where its former acquirer has become its most motivated competitor. The IPO market may be showing signs of life, with companies like CoreWeave and Circle performing well, but those successes came in markets without established giants actively working to eliminate them.
Figma’s management team, led by CEO Dylan Field, has promised investors to “expect us to take big swings, including through acquisitions.” It’s the kind of bold statement that sounds impressive until you realize it’s coming from a company that just watched its own acquisition fall apart due to regulatory concerns. The irony is so thick you could design a user interface around it.
The company’s international expansion plans and growing enterprise customer base represent genuine achievements, but they also highlight Figma’s fundamental challenge: competing against a company that already has global reach, enterprise relationships, and the kind of product integration that takes decades to build.
The Withering Prophecy
As Figma approaches its IPO, the biblical parallels become increasingly difficult to ignore. Just as the fig tree appeared healthy with its full complement of leaves but failed to deliver the fruit that was expected, Figma presents the appearance of a thriving design platform while facing the fundamental challenge of competing against an ecosystem it can never fully replicate.
The curse of the abandoned acquisition may prove more powerful than any regulatory intervention. Adobe’s $1 billion termination fee wasn’t just a financial penalty—it was tuition for one of the most expensive business school lessons in Silicon Valley history. The lesson: when you can’t buy your competition, you build something better and use your existing advantages to ensure they never recover.
Whether Figma can overcome its biblical branding and competitive challenges remains to be seen. But as any student of scripture knows, curses have a way of fulfilling themselves, especially when the cursed party chooses to literally brand itself with the symbol of its own prophetic doom.
The fig tree withered from its roots. One can only hope that Figma’s roots run deeper than its ticker symbol suggests.
What do you think about Figma’s chances in the public markets? Will the company overcome the Adobe curse, or is this IPO destined to become another cautionary tale about the perils of collaborative design hubris? Share your thoughts on whether FIG will flourish or follow the biblical precedent of its namesake fruit.
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