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- Figma: OS for product
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S1 Deep Dive
Figma in one minute
Figma is quietly transforming the way teams build the world’s best digital products—together, in real time, and in the browser. Founded in 2012, Figma started as a web-based design tool and evolved into a full-stack, AI-powered collaboration platform used by designers, engineers, product managers, and marketers alike. Today, over 13 million people use Figma each month to shape the digital experiences behind apps like Uber, Netflix, Google Maps, and Airbnb.
Built for the gaps siloed tools can’t reach, Figma operates with a dual motion: viral, bottoms-up growth that seeds into enterprises, and a direct sales model that expands into six- and seven-figure contracts. Its collaborative, multiplayer canvas has become the product spec, the whiteboard, and the build system—all in one.
With $912M in ARR, 88% gross margins, and 132% net dollar retention, Figma is a PLG standout scaling fast. As it prepares to go public, its strategy is clear: expand across roles, unlock new monetization layers, and become the operating system for product creation in every modern company.
Introduction
Figma operates across three foundational pillars: a real-time collaborative canvas, an extensible browser-based platform, and a global community driving viral adoption. Together, they power a new operating system for digital product creation—one designed to unite design, engineering, and product teams on a shared mission: turning ideas into high-impact digital experiences.
Figma’s browser-native, multiplayer environment was purpose-built to replace fragmented toolchains and enable seamless co-creation. Designers no longer work in silos. Instead, they collaborate side-by-side with PMs, engineers, researchers, marketers, and writers—anyone who contributes to building the product. This inclusive model has led to 13M+ monthly active users as of March 2025, two-thirds of whom are non-designers. The result: smoother handoffs, faster iteration, and a single source of truth from whiteboard to ship.
The core platform has rapidly expanded. What began as a UI design tool now includes FigJam (for early ideation), Dev Mode (for handoff and inspection), Figma Slides (for aligned storytelling), Figma Sites (for publishing live websites), and new AI-driven tools like Figma Make and Buzz. These launches reflect a shift from point solutions to an integrated, AI-powered system of record for product development.
Figma’s growth engine combines product-led virality with efficient enterprise sales. One shared URL often initiates a multi-year expansion across an organization. As of Q1 2025, 70% of Figma’s revenue came from enterprise and organization tiers, with a remarkable 132% Net Dollar Retention and 88% gross margins. Its sales efficiency of 1.0 shows that every dollar spent on go-to-market is matched with a dollar of new gross profit—a benchmark for product-led SaaS.
At the heart of Figma’s differentiation is its belief that design isn’t just about how something looks—but how it works. In a world where digital is the primary customer touchpoint, great design is no longer optional. It’s a competitive edge. That’s why 95% of the Fortune 500 and 78% of the Forbes Global 2000 used Figma in March 2025.
Backed by an active developer ecosystem—over 10,000 community-built plugins and 250,000 resources—Figma is not just a tool. It’s infrastructure for the next generation of software teams. As AI reshapes how software gets built, Figma is positioned to lead the transformation: a system not for designing in isolation, but for building together at scale.
History
Figma began its journey in 2012 with a simple but disruptive idea: design should live in the browser—and be built for teams, not silos. At a time when UI work was fragmented across desktop apps, manual handoffs, and versioned email attachments, Figma set out to eliminate the gap between imagination and execution. The vision was ambitious: make design more accessible, collaborative, and ultimately more impactful.
From the outset, Figma’s browser-based multiplayer canvas challenged the norms of design software. Where others focused on single-player workflows, Figma enabled real-time co-creation across disciplines. Designers, developers, PMs, and marketers could all work together, in one file, from anywhere in the world—using nothing more than a link. That foundational innovation set the tone for what Figma would become: not just a design tool, but a new kind of workspace for building digital products.
As the software economy exploded, so did Figma’s relevance. By 2025, IDC estimated over 1 billion new apps would exist by 2028, with software spending projected to surpass $1.2 trillion. In that environment, Figma’s role evolved. With the launch of FigJam (for ideation), Dev Mode (for engineering handoff), and AI-powered tools like Make and Buzz, Figma expanded from a design canvas into a complete platform for product development. Its rapid product velocity was powered by early investments in WebGL and a native browser architecture that enabled faster iteration and scale.
Backed by a growing ecosystem—including over 10,000 plugins and 250,000 community-built resources—Figma became more than software. It became a system of record for digital creation. By 2025, over 13 million people used Figma every month, including 95% of the Fortune 500 and 78% of the Forbes Global 2000. Notably, two-thirds of those users were non-designers—a testament to Figma’s expanding footprint across the product development lifecycle.
What began as a better way to design UIs has grown into a $33B+ market opportunity. According to Figma-commissioned IDC research, 144 million people globally will be engaged in software design by 2029. Figma is positioning itself as the foundational layer for this workforce: browser-native, AI-accelerated, and deeply collaborative.
Today, Figma’s mission—to close the gap between ideas and execution—feels more urgent and achievable than ever. As generative AI reshapes how digital products are conceived and built, Figma’s role is to ensure those products are not only functional, but beautifully and thoughtfully designed. From a single design tool to a full-stack platform shaping the future of software, Figma’s story is one of expansion, inclusion, and relentless innovation—and it’s only just getting started
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