Adobe and Figma end $20B acquisition plans after regulatory headwinds in Europe | TechCrunch

Adobe’s $20 billion mega-bid to buy rival Figma is now officially dead, after the companies said today that regulatory pushback in Europe had caused them to put an end to the acquisition plans.

First announced in September last year, the deal was always going to attract regulatory scrutiny due to the size of the transaction and the fact that it took one of Adobe’s major rivals out of the picture. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) had been looking closely at the deal for the better part of 2023, though it had yet to file any formal lawsuit to stop the deal from happening — but news emerged before the weekend that Adobe and Figma were meeting with the DoJ in a last-gasp attempt to avert legal action.

Irrespective of that, the two companies were already facing significant headwinds in Europe. The U.K. had concluded in late November that the proposed acquisition would “harm innovation” and would thus launch an in-depth investigation, following on from a similar outcome in the European Union (EU) which announced a similar course of action in August.

The crux of the concerns was that Figma was the “clear market leader” for interactive product design tools, and that it acted as a “constraining influence” over Adobe in the digital asset creation tools space — therefore, Adobe buying Figma would prevent Figma from being an “effective competitor.”

In a blog post today, Figma CEO and co-founder Dylan Field said that they reached the “joint decision” after failing to convince regulators of the differences between their respective products and businesses.

“It’s not the outcome we had hoped for, but despite thousands of hours spent with regulators around the world detailing differences between our businesses, our products, and the markets we serve, we no longer see a path toward regulatory approval of the deal,” Field said.

This is a developing story, refresh for updates.