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Figma’s $1.5 Billion IPO Estimate Became a $1.2 Billion Offering: What Investors Should Know

Figma went public in July 2025 after an early estimate suggested it could raise $1.5 billion. The final deal, share structure, financials, AI risks, and governance tell a more nuanced story.
From TheFinanceBase Team7 min to read
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Figma did eventually go public—but not exactly as the original July 2025 headline suggested. The company filed its S-1 on July 1, 2025, when Renaissance Capital estimated that the offering could raise as much as $1.5 billion. Figma later priced its IPO at $33 per share, sold 36,937,080 shares, and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under FIG on July 31, 2025.

The base offering was worth approximately $1.22 billion at the IPO price. But Figma itself received only about $393.1 million in net proceeds; most of the shares were sold by existing investors and insiders. That distinction—and Figma’s unusually powerful dual-class voting structure—matters as much as its rapid growth.

What happened to Figma’s proposed IPO?

The original report described a possible blockbuster IPO, not a completed transaction. On July 1, 2025, Figma publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1. The filing proposed a New York Stock Exchange listing under the symbol FIG, but it did not yet disclose a final share count, price range, or offering date. Figma’s announcement is available on its company blog.

That filing made Figma’s finances available for public scrutiny and began the process that led to its listing. The eventual result was smaller than the early outside estimate, but still one of the more closely watched software IPOs of 2025.

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Where did the $1.5 billion figure come from?

The $1.5 billion figure was an estimate from Renaissance Capital, reported by TechCrunch. It was not a fundraising target disclosed by Figma.

At the filing stage, the amount an IPO might raise depends on two unknowns: the number of shares offered and the eventual price per share. The estimate was compared with CoreWeave’s roughly $1.5 billion technology IPO in 2025.

“Could raise $1.5 billion” also did not mean “could be valued at $1.5 billion.” Offering proceeds are calculated from shares sold and the price paid for those shares. A company’s valuation depends on its total outstanding shares, including shares that are not sold in the IPO, as well as the applicable share classes and dilution.

Figma’s financial picture

The S-1 showed a software company with strong growth and exceptionally high gross margins, but those figures did not eliminate the usual public-company questions about operating expenses, stock-based compensation, cash generation, and valuation.

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Metric Figure Why it matters
2024 revenue $749 million Revenue grew 48% year over year.
Q1 2025 revenue growth 46% year over year Growth remained strong after 2024.
Trailing-12-month revenue About $821 million Figma was approaching $1 billion in annualized scale.
Gross margin About 91% Shows the attractive gross economics common to large software businesses.
IPO price $33 per share The final price was above the revised $30–$32 range.
Company net proceeds About $393.1 million The amount Figma expected to receive after underwriting discounts, before company-paid offering expenses.

A 91% gross margin is not the same as a 91% profit margin. Gross profit excludes costs such as research and development, sales and marketing, general and administrative expenses, and stock-based compensation. Investors must examine operating income, net income, free cash flow, and the fully diluted share count separately.

The initial coverage also contained a chronology problem around Figma’s reported profit and loss figures. It should not be repeated as a claim that Figma was profitable in one year and then lost $732 million in that same year. The unusual loss was associated largely with substantial stock-based compensation disclosures, but that does not make every expense or future dilution irrelevant. The precise fiscal period and accounting basis matter.

How the offering terms changed

Figma’s IPO terms moved upward as the offering progressed:

  • July 1, 2025: Figma filed its initial public S-1 without a final price range or share count.
  • July 21: The roadshow began with an expected price range of $25 to $28 per share, according to Figma’s announcement.
  • July 28: Figma raised the expected range to $30–$32 per share in a revised filing announcement.
  • July 30: The IPO priced at $33 per share.
  • July 31: Trading began on the NYSE under FIG.
  • August 1: The offering closed, according to the company’s SEC filing.

The rising range and final pricing suggest strong demand during the roadshow. They do not, by themselves, prove that the stock was fairly valued or that the business would maintain its growth.

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How much did Figma actually raise?

The base offering included:

  • 12,472,657 new Class A shares sold by Figma.
  • 24,464,423 existing shares sold by current stockholders.
  • An underwriter option for selling stockholders to offer up to 5,540,561 additional shares.

At $33 per share, the 36,937,080-share base offering had a gross value of approximately $1.22 billion. That is the appropriate context for the early $1.5 billion estimate: the eventual base deal was substantial, but below that estimate.

Figma issued only the primary shares. It expected approximately $393.1 million in net proceeds after underwriting discounts. The company did not receive the money from the secondary shares. Those proceeds went to existing stockholders, including early investors and other eligible holders, subject to the offering documents.

This structure has two interpretations. It gave employees, executives, and venture investors an opportunity to obtain liquidity. It also meant that much of the headline deal value did not fund Figma’s research, hiring, acquisitions, or balance sheet.

Major early backers reported in the original coverage included Index Ventures, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and Sequoia. Ownership and selling activity are useful context, but a secondary sale does not automatically indicate that a seller is either bullish or bearish on the company.

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Why investors found Figma attractive

Figma’s investment case rested on more than a popular design application.

  • Growth at scale: Revenue was growing rapidly even after reaching hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
  • Software economics: Its roughly 91% gross margin left considerable room to support operating investment if revenue continued to expand.
  • Workflow position: Figma’s browser-based, collaborative tools were used by designers, product managers, engineers, and developers.
  • Brand and adoption: The product had become closely associated with collaborative interface design and prototyping.
  • Expansion potential: Figma could broaden into presentations, websites, marketing assets, whiteboarding, prototyping, and AI-assisted creation.
  • Public-market scarcity: The IPO arrived after many large venture-backed software companies had remained private for years.

For customers, the strategic question was whether Figma would remain a design tool or become a broader system for creating and delivering digital products.

AI is both an opportunity and a risk

Figma’s filing warned that rapidly evolving generative-AI tools could make its products less competitive. AI app builders and “vibe coding” platforms may allow people to create interfaces or working applications with less reliance on traditional design workflows.

That risk is not necessarily a simple prediction that AI will replace Figma. AI could also increase the amount of content and software being created, help users generate prototypes and assets, and make Figma more useful as a shared environment for reviewing, refining, and coordinating that work.

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The central strategic question is whether Figma becomes the system of record for AI-assisted product creation—or whether AI-native tools bypass its core workflow. Public investors should track product adoption, customer retention, monetization, and the company’s ability to turn AI features into durable revenue rather than treating “AI” as a standalone investment thesis.

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Competitive and valuation risks

Figma competes with AI-native design and development products, Adobe, established collaboration and prototyping tools, open-source projects, and lower-cost alternatives. Adobe’s proposed acquisition of Figma for approximately $20 billion in 2022 was abandoned after regulatory opposition. That history explains some of the attention around Figma’s independence, but the 2022 acquisition proposal and the 2025 IPO occurred in different market and interest-rate environments. They are not directly comparable valuations.

Another risk is workflow leakage: customers may use Figma for early design and prototyping but move to other tools for production, publishing, or application development. Figma’s expansion strategy is intended to address that possibility, but broader product ambitions also require additional spending and execution.

High growth and high gross margins can coexist with an expensive stock. Investors evaluating FIG should separate:

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  • Revenue growth from operating profitability.
  • Gross margin from free cash flow.
  • Reported earnings from the effect of stock-based compensation.
  • The IPO price from the company’s fully diluted market capitalization.
  • Roadshow demand from long-term customer and earnings performance.

Figma’s control structure

Figma used a dual-class share structure. Class B shares carried 15 votes per share. In the amended prospectus, CEO Dylan Field and President Praveer Melwani were expected to control approximately 73.6% of the voting power.

That means public investors could own economic interests in Figma while having limited influence over shareholder votes. Management could retain effective control over matters such as strategic changes, stock issuance, acquisitions, and the company’s approach to AI investment.

Voting control is not the same as economic ownership. A founder may control most votes without owning most of the company’s economic value. Investors should read the prospectus’s ownership tables rather than infer control from the number of shares sold in the IPO.

What personal investors should take from the IPO

  1. Use the correct timeline. The July 1 report described a filing-stage possibility. Figma completed the IPO in July 2025.
  2. Do not confuse gross deal size with company capital. Approximately $1.22 billion of shares were sold in the base offering, while Figma received about $393.1 million in net proceeds.
  3. Do not treat the $33 IPO price as a long-term value judgment. It was the price used to complete the offering, not a guarantee of future performance.
  4. Read beyond gross margin. Operating costs, stock compensation, dilution, free cash flow, and revenue durability remain important.
  5. Price in governance. A fast-growing business can still carry meaningful shareholder-control risk.
  6. Consider volatility and concentration. A single technology stock can move sharply as investors reassess growth, competition, interest rates, and AI exposure.

Readers who want to research FIG can use a regulated brokerage or public-company research service. Availability, fees, fractional-share rules, tax treatment, and account requirements vary by provider. Buying shares after listing is different from receiving an IPO allocation.

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This article is informational and is not investment advice. Consider your objectives, risk tolerance, diversification, and tax circumstances before investing.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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