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The Briefing: Figma’s Happy Story

The Briefing
Sometimes good things happen to nice guys. I'm talking about Dylan Field, one of the more grounded founder-CEOs you're likely to meet in tech.͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­͏ ‌     ­
Jul 28, 2025

The Briefing

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Greetings!

Sometimes good things happen to nice guys. I'm talking about Dylan Field, one of the more grounded founder-CEOs you're likely to meet in tech. His design software firm, Figma, looks to be sailing toward a very strong public debut in the next week. Figma on Monday raised the preliminary pricing range for its IPO to between $30 and $32 a share—from the initial range of between $25 and $28. At the upper level of the new range, Figma would have a market capitalization of $18.7 billion and an enterprise value of $17.2 billion. Our True Value columnist calculated last week Figma was worth around $15 billion, to put those numbers into perspective.

Figma is likely benefiting from investor appreciation for its rapid growth and solid cash generation, in addition to the current upbeat mood in the market right now. Revenue grew 48% last year, 46% in the first quarter and is expected to expand 40% in the second quarter. Its free cash margin, excluding costs related to the abandonment in 2023 of its proposed merger with Adobe, was 24% last year and 41% in the first quarter, very decent numbers for a fast-growing company. For investors, who have little in the way of fast-growing and profitable companies going public these days, Figma is a no-brainer. (For more of our analysis on Figma, see here. And for a download of which investors will win the most from the offering, see here and check out today's edition of The Information's TITV.)

The only wrinkle in this picture is the uncertainty about how artificial intelligence will roil Figma's business in the next few years. New AI-powered tools seem likely to drastically affect enterprise software in general. We reported this morning that AI is making it easier for companies to switch to new software providers by offering a way to extricate their data from apps they've used for a long time. Figma itself acknowledges in its IPO filing that AI will make software "easier to create." To be sure, Figma is investing in its own AI features—it warned in a note in the IPO filing that AI spending "will potentially be a drag on our efficiency for several years." 

Of course, uncertainty about AI is a fact of life in tech nowadays, and it's not likely to deter too many people interested in the Figma IPO. This offering doesn't have the boost of association with crypto—and AI isn't part of Figma's name. But it's likely to do decently well regardless.

Imagination in corporate nomenclature is not a strong point for the folks at Warner Bros. Discovery. The entertainment company announced on Monday that after it splits in two, the film and streaming business will be called Warner Bros. and the cable channel enterprise will be called Discovery Global. Yes, it literally just split its existing name in half and added the word "Global."

Fortunately, the other TV firm with Global in its name—Paramount Global—will drop that part of its name when David Ellison's Skydance acquires it. That deal closes on Aug. 7, after which time the company will be known as Paramount Skydance.

Still, as unsurprising as the new names are, they're probably better than what Comcast's NBCUniversal came up with for its new cable channel company, to be carved off from NBCUniversal. That company will be called Versant, which CEO Mark Lazarus said in a memo to staff was "a blueprint for versatility, growth and innovation," according to this Hollywood Reporter story. Actually the word means the slope of a mountain, according to the dictionary. As Versant will house a bunch of declining cable channels, perhaps the Comcast folks were thinking of a downslope. 

• Samsung will produce chips for Tesla through a multiyear deal worth $16.5 billion, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Monday.

• PayPal will allow U.S. merchants to start accepting crypto in the coming weeks, with the payment giant adding support for transactions in more than 100 cryptocurrencies and crypto wallets from companies including Coinbase and MetaMask.

• DoorDash hired longtime ad executive Lee Brown as chief revenue officer, although Brown won't oversee its growing ad business. Instead, Brown will deal with business development and accounting management with restaurants, grocery stores and other merchants, reporting to Chief Operating Officer Prabir Adarkar.

• Citigroup tech dealmaker Phil Drury will join AI startup Poolside as the firm's first chief investment officer after 29 years at the investment bank.

Dealmaker was named the "Best in Business" newsletter for its insightful coverage of private technology and the AI hype cycle. Start receiving the newsletter here.  

The Information's Cory Weinberg discussed Figma's IPO on today's edition of TITV.

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