Figma Inc. signage through the firm’s preliminary public providing (IPO) on the New York Inventory Trade (NYSE) in New York, US, on Thursday, July 31, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
You’ll be able to nearly odor the bubbly wafting throughout Silicon Valley.
Following Figma’s blockbuster market debut on Thursday, 4 of probably the most iconic names in enterprise capital — Index Ventures, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia — are collectively sitting on roughly $24 billion value of the design software program vendor’s inventory.
Till just lately, there’s been little motive to have a good time. From late 2021, when hovering inflation and rising charges pushed traders out of dangerous property, till the center of 2025, tech IPOs have been few and far between, and lots of the corporations that managed to make it out didn’t impress Wall Road. That is left enterprise corporations with scarce returns for the pension funds, endowments and foundations they depend on for funding.
The temper is noticeably brighter as of late because the Nasdaq trades close to a file.
Figma is the catastrophe, and maybe most high-profile, tech firm to hit the market, and Wall Road seems to need extra. After elevating its worth vary this week after which pricing $1 above the highest of that vary, Figma shares soared 250% of their first day on the New York Inventory Trade.
Buyers will admit they obtained fortunate. Figma was alleged to get acquired for $20 billion by Adobe, an settlement the 2 corporations forged in 2022. However the next yr, the transaction collapsed after U.Ok. regulators mentioned the tie-up would hurt competitors.
Figma is now value greater than thrice what Adobe was going to pay, closing on Thursday with a market cap of virtually $68 billion.
CEO Dylan Subject, who co-founded the corporate in 2012, owns a stake value over $6 billion. Danny Rimer, a accomplice at Index Ventures and Figma board member, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the failed acquisition got here with “intense stress and a highlight few founders ever face.”
“Dylan remained his typical grounded, clear self,” wrote Rimer, whose agency first bet on Figma in 2013 and is the most important shareholder, with $7.2 billion value of inventory within the firm. “When the deal fell by a yr later, he did not flinch. He turned the web page and obtained proper again to constructing.”
Figma’s providing raised $1.2 billion, with two-thirds of the proceeds going to current traders. Apart from the small slug of inventory every of the enterprise corporations offered at $33, the remainder of their holdings are topic to a lock-up interval, that means the entire present worth is at the moment simply on paper. The overwhelming majority of excellent shares are locked up for 180 days, so massive inventory gross sales cannot occur till January.
Stablecoin issuer Circle went public in June, and is the opposite tech IPO that is generated hefty returns for VCs just lately. The shares have been initially offered at $31 every and at the moment are buying and selling at over $183, leaving funding corporations IDG Capital, Basic Catalyst, Accel and Breyer Capital with a mixed stake of near $12 billion. Circle doubled on its first day of buying and selling.
Whereas IPO pops generate loads of buzz and dramatically raise the worth of traders’ holdings, they don’t seem to be universally celebrated. Invoice Gurley of Benchmark has for years been a critic of such first-day beneficial properties, arguing that bankers depart cash on the desk for the corporate whereas handing deeply discounted inventory to new traders.
In a sequence of posts on X on Thursday, Gurley described the Figma final result as “anticipated & totally intentional.”
“Who advantages?” Gurley wrote, shortly after the inventory started buying and selling. “The massive shoppers of the funding banks (who return the favor paying for different providers). They purchased it at $33 final evening and may promote it as we speak for over $90.”
Return of the exits
Nonetheless, the exuberance available in the market is welcome information for many VCs.
After a file yr in 2021, which noticed 155 U.S. venture-backed IPOs increase $60.4 billion, yearly since has been comparatively dismal, based on data from College of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter. There have been 13 such choices in 2022, adopted by 18 in 2023 and 30 final yr, collectively elevating $13.3 billion, Ritter’s knowledge reveals.
The slowdown adopted the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking marketing campaign in 2022, meant to sluggish crippling inflation. Because the lower-growth surroundings prolonged into years two and three, enterprise corporations confronted rising stress to return money to traders.
Earlier this yr, the exit surroundings was nonetheless trying ominous. After President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs in April, corporations together with on-line lender Klarna and ticket market StubHub delayed their IPO plans. The Nasdaq plummeted 10% in every week, as traders fretted over the potential of rising import prices and provide chain disruptions.
However Trump later walked again his threats and the trade deals he is landed have resulted in decrease tariffs than beforehand feared.
Brannin McBee, Chief Improvement Officer and Co-founder of CoreWeave, Mike Intrator, Chief Government Officer and founding father of CoreWeave, Peter Salanki, Chief Know-how Officer of CoreWeave, and Brian Venturo, Chief Technique Officer and founding father of CoreWeave, pose for pictures through the firm’s Preliminary Public Providing(IPO) on the Nasdaq headquarters on March 28, 2025 in New York Metropolis.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Photos Information | Getty Photos
CoreWeave, a supplier of synthetic intelligence infrastructure, went public simply earlier than Trump’s preliminary plans have been introduced. The inventory is now nearly triple its IPO worth, closing on Thursday at $114.13, although that is down about 38% from its excessive in June.
CoreWeave and Circle have each been massive wins for traders, with their market caps now at about $56 billion and $41 billion, respectively. Figma is value much more.
Lynn Martin, president of the NYSE, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Road” on Thursday that she thinks the Figma providing “will open the floodgates.”
Figma’s early traders and large monetary winners all printed glowing weblog posts about Subject and the journey he is been on with the corporate that he began after dropping out of faculty in 2012.
“Figma’s relentless give attention to product, group, and craft has reshaped how the world designs,” wrote Greylock’s John Lilly in a post on Thursday. His agency led the $14 Collection AI funding in 2015 and now owns a stake value about $6.7 billion.
Kleiner Perkins led the $25 Collection B, which was introduced in 2018. Its holdings at the moment are valued at $6 billion.
“The product was nonetheless early, however the love from its small group of customers was unmistakable,” wrote Kleiner accomplice Mamoon Hamid, in his post after the IPO. “We have been satisfied that Figma had the potential to essentially reshape how digital merchandise could be designed, and knew we needed to be a part of it.”
Two years later, enterprise powerhouse Sequoia stepped in to guide Figma’s $40 million Collection C spherical. Sequoia’s Andrew Reed wrote on the time that the corporate had “the expertise and tradition to construct an everlasting, elementary firm.”
On Thursday, along with his agency’s stake in Figma approaching $3.8 billion, Reed took to X for his congratulatory remarks.
“Congrats to the unimaginable @Figma crew,” Reed wrote. “Probably the most inventive, decided, imaginative, and optimistic group of individuals. I am simply so glad for your whole success.”
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.
