Adobe has agreed to buy design software company Figma for roughly $20bn, sending a jolt through a sector that has been among the hardest hit in the tech sell-off that began late last year.
San Francisco-based Figma, which was founded in 2012, allows software developers and designers to collaborate remotely and design everything from slides for presentations to user interfaces on mobile apps.
Along with Australian start-up Canva, it is part of a wave of new browser-based design tools that have opened up the creative process to millions of non-designers, expanding the market and presenting a potential threat to Adobe, the traditional leader in design software.