Figma acquires AI design startup Weavy for reported $200M+ – News

Figma Inc. has bought Weavy Inc., a startup with an artificial intelligence platform for creating images and videos.

Figma announced the acquisition today without disclosing its financial terms. Calcalist reported that the transaction values Tel Aviv-based Weavy at more than $200 million. That’s about 50 times the amount of funding the startup raised prior to the deal.

The acquisition is Figma’s first since its high-profile initial public offering in July. The company and its investors sold nearly 37 million shares for $1.2 billion. Figma ended its first day on the NYSE at $115.50 per share, a more than 200% premium to the price that IPO participants paid.

Weavy, which counts Fiverr International Ltd. founder Micha Kaufman among its investors, launched about a year ago. The company’s namesake AI design platform enables users to create images, animations and videos with prompts. Weavy says its installed base includes teams at multiple Fortune 100 companies.

The platform’s interface centers on a graph that comprises a series of interconnected boxes. One set of boxes might contain ad visuals, while another could be used to store marketing copy. A Weavy graph can contain dozens of content boxes. 

Users can start a new project by uploading a description of the object they wish to draw and a reference image. From there, Weavy uses a large language model to generate a text overview of the user’s design requirements. It then inputs that text into image and video generation models.

Weavy provides access to more than a dozen third-party AI models. If a project requires an algorithm that closely follows instructions while generating an image, Weavy launches Google LLC’s Nano Banana algorithm. It activates Veo or Sora when users request a custom video. 

Designers can edit the content that Weavy generates with natural language instructions. The platform can resize an object, change its style and switch the background. It’s also capable of creating new objects from scratch based on detailed multi-sentence prompts.

Figma plans to relaunch Weavy as a product called Figma Weave. The offering will join the more than half-dozen design tools that the company has released over the past three years.

Figma’s flagship product, Figma Design, is geared mainly toward creating website and mobile app interfaces. It enables designers to collaborate in real time similarly to  Google Docs. A company can set design guidelines for its design teams to ensure that visuals follow a consistent format. 

Figma’s other tools focus on adjacent use cases. Figma Draw, which debuted earlier this year, speeds up illustration tasks by automating repetitive work. Another tool called Dev Mode makes it easier for software teams to access the code associated with a website or mobile app design.

The Weavy acquisition extends Figma’s product portfolio to the video editing and animation segments, where it currently doesn’t have a significant presence. The company’s existing tools enable developers to embed videos and animations into interface designs, but provide limited support for more advanced tasks. 

The deal could enable Figma to compete more directly with Adobe Inc., which sought to acquire it in 2022 for $20 billion. The transaction fell through the following year after U.K. regulators raised antitrust concerns. Adobe offers multiple video editing and animation tools alongside its Photoshop graphics editor.

Image: Figma