Adobe announced the biggest acquisition in its history last week, the $20 billion purchase of design collaboration specialist Figma. Adobe's stock price dropped on concerns that it had overpaid at a time when IPOs are at a standstill and acquisitions have slowed, web traffic analysis shows why Figma is a hot property. As TechCrunch pointed out, that price was a big jump for Figma, which was valued at $10 billion when it last raised money in June 2021.

Two years ago, during some of the toughest months of the pandemic, Figma was seeing traffic grow at more than 200%, year over year, as companies were forced to switch to highly distributed modes of design and product development.

Figma filled that need as a 100% web-based and highly collaborative platform for carrying the design of digital products and experiences from whiteboard sketch, to prototype, to polished product. As a giant in the world of design software, Adobe saw Figma increasingly encroaching on its territory and decided to make it part of its own family of products.