On Tuesday, the cloud-based design platform Figma filed in confidence for an IPO in the US; over a year after a $20 billion deal to be acquired by Adobe was canceled because of regulatory obstacles.

After antitrust authorities in Europe and Britain vetoed Adobe's transaction in December 2023, which would have been one of the largest acquisitions of a software firm, Figma was mostly seen as a potential contender to go public.

Following a deal that allowed its workers and early investors to sell their interest to both new and current investors; Figma was valued at $12.5 billion last year.

Companies are taking a wait-and-see stance before making their stock market debuts as a result of market volatility brought on by tariff-related uncertainties, which has shaken the US initial public offering (IPO) industry, which had a robust recovery last year from a number of high-profile listings.

Kaidi Gao, senior VC analyst at PitchBook, noted that enthusiasm for the IPO market is generally low and has been impacted by heightened market volatility arising from a lack of regulatory certainty. A number of IT businesses filed to go public in recent months, but many later decided to postpone their plans.

Adobe, Uber, Spotify, and Alphabet's search engine behemoth Google are among the clients of Figma, a design platform that offers both free and paid options for creating, sharing, and testing ideas for websites, mobile applications, and other digital goods.

Co-founded in 2012 by IT executive Dylan Field, the business has a positive cash flow and has grown to offer a more comprehensive platform for team collaborations that incorporates artificial intelligence elements.