Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news to our world TV and radio audiences. Hi, welcome you back to Bloomberg Tech outside the New York Sock Exchange sat with the latest listing. The CEO of Figma, Dylan Field, joins me now and to your thirteen million users, to the thousands of global employees worldwide, how's it feel about?
It feels surreal And just thank you for having me and for being here with us today. It's just amazing to see the community turn out and also just to be with the team. The contributions of fig Mates past present, and also just all the things we've learned and contin to learn from our community. They all just kind of show up today in physical manifestation and I can be more grateful.
I mean, the vibes, there's a like DJ. There's so many of your employee base, as you say, your fig mates, those who are batch you early.
Why this, why this?
What does that show about your community?
Well, I mean what we really wanted to do is involve the design community in this experience today that we're having, because I think it's not just that Figma's going public today.
Design is going public today.
Yeah, And if you think back several decades, you know, back, you know, twenty years ago, the sort of mindset was that design was lipstick on a pig, This is how you make it pretty, and maybe a decade ago it was design is how it works. And then today, you know, twenty twenty five, in a world where software accomplish is increasing so much, it's easier than ever to create software. Yes, I think we're now in a world where design is
the differentiator. That's been our thesis for ten years. We've seen it play out, but it's even more clear now the design craft point of view, that's what sets companies apart, and so we're just trying to be this engine for product.
Sign and development.
And to be able to celebrate design today with all of our friends and community is such a privilege.
What sets you apart to be able to enable design versus the whole plethora of generative AI startups that is suddenly here and on these seat and making things very cheap to build.
To say, as you say, design, yeah, I think that there's such an opportunity for us with Pigma Make to be able to help people go from prompt all the way to app and we're very focused on that and improving that surface area.
We have so much more to come there.
But already you can not only do things through prompting, but you can also copy and paste things in from your Pigma design, your canvas into Figma make. And there are times you want to edit via prompt there are also times you want to edit in a more direct manipulation way where you go in to the canvas and you're able to see many different options in the option space. We think both are important and both have to work really well together, and so that's something we're excited to
uniquely enable. And I just think in general, we're kind of in this ms dos era of AI and if we're able to get to the point where we really was true and if we're able to get to the point I mean I used to say tellnet era and people like, let's tell net so you know, stop for
that and went down as das. But if we're able to get to this point where people can really explore the latent space of these models and what we generated and see the entire option space of what they can do, then humans designers can add that craft yeah, and really figure out how to differentiate and also the systems their head, not just the design and the technology system, but also.
The business constraints.
And that's why it's important to over the floor ceiling bring more people into the design process.
So that one point two billion dollars that you raise through this process.
How does that go?
Where does that get allocated to ensure that you're building well.
So one thing that was unique by the transaction was because of the cash balance we have at Pigma uh you know, due to rounds we've raised but never really used cash that we've generated, and also the breakup fee, we had quite a cash balance. And so it's a transaction that is a lot of secondary and then there's some primary, but mostly for the release of ursus and so it's more synthetic primary and the uh so, I mean we already have quite the cash balance. It's more
or less what we're exiting the transaction with. And when we think.
About the future of how to deploy.
That, First of all, we want to be good schoo stewards of capital always. But I did put my founder letter in the s one. Yeah, expect us to make old moves and I want people to know that in investment the community, because we're going to invest in AI we're going into an investment cycle here, and it's important people are aware of that.
You all go to invest you're not going to be focusing on profitability, You'll be focusing on growth.
We are focusing on growth, and we're focusing on all the great things that we can do right now and enable for our users. The value we can create for our customers.
Using the public markets are going to give you that.
Bandwidth, Well, that's their choice. That's why I want to make sure I call it out up front. Yeah, And another thing that I think is important to note is in terms of big swings, I can't say when or if, but my intention is to do big swings when it comes to scaled M and A and.
Well a lot of companies.
Well, when I.
Think about how we approach the process, we're always surveyed, we're always trying to learn, and there's so much that can be applicable of FIGMA when you think of the breadth of product design and development and that entire process which we're really trying to cover. And not all the gaps we have will be filled with us building our buy and a lot of them will be partnerships.
But I wanted to call it out because for.
Scaled M and A, as you you, that is often misinterpreted by markets. It creates volatility, people get, you know, sometimes they don't understand the really good stuff and obviously will be prudent. You know, it has to be an amazing team, an amazing asset has to be something that we think that the team is culturally consistent the least, but preferably culture ad Yeah, and they're going to create new dimensionality to our culture that we didn't.
Have before and we're gonna learn from them Andy.
But third and most importantly, it has to be a main priority going forward. That's the minimum, and we will hold a high bar for what if, we if and when we do that to.
Our TV and radio audiences. We're with Dylan Field, the CEO of Pigma, which has just gone public, and if we cast our minds back, the valuation that you're currently at looks at about twenty million dollars and that was the amount that Adobe wanted to pay to buy you that didn't work out. So, just talking about M and A, was this the right path to be independent?
How does that make you feel?
I mean, we've been so focused on this path for years now and I'm just really excited to be here today. The Adobe stuff kind of feels like so long ago now. Yeah, and yeah, just as we look forward, I mean, there's so much to build in, such a breadth of opportunity.
We have, like I gues said the funeral letter, more ideas than ever.
Yeah, And it's all about prioritization, and it's all about clarity for the team. And that's what we're trying to do, is to create that clarity.
I mean talking about demand, you are forty times over subscribed to those retail investors that want to get in on this, what do you say the short term if the shares popped?
The only message I can give you, if you're on the retail side is understand what we do. We have our s one out there. We've done our best to present it in a really readable way of read the document and look at our numbers. Understand where we're headed and what we offer. Play with a product, you know, become a designer. I think you know that's true for a lot of people and a lot of companies. If designs how you win or lose, you should be part
of the process too. But the more you can dive in and the better you can understand it, the better you can make a decision on things. And that's the best advice I give anyone, whether they're joining Figma, trying to invest in Figma, those are both investments of time of money, and that's important.
Is so deeply understand it.
Dylan Fields, CEO of Figma, on the day of their IPO from the New York Look Exchange