Dylan Field and Evan Wallace started creating design startup Figma to challenge Adobe’s PhotoShop. Now Adobe has made them billionaires after announcing it will acquire Figma for $20 billion in a cash and stock transaction.

The deal doubles the valuation the San Francisco-based startup snagged in June 2021, when it raised $200 million from investors including Durable Capital and Morgan Stanley. Forbes estimates that Field and Wallace each hold a 10% stake in the company which is now valued at $2 billion.

Figma has been dubbed Google Docs, or GitHub, for designers with a loyal user base in the millions, paying between $12 and $45 per publisher for its digital whiteboard product.

“Adobe’s greatness is built on our ability to create new categories and deliver cutting-edge technologies through organic innovation and inorganic acquisitions,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe, in a statement. . “The combination of Adobe and Figma is transformational and will accelerate our vision for collaborative creativity.”

The deal marks Adobe’s biggest acquisition since buying marketing automation software company Marketo in September 2018 for $4.75 billion. Adobe’s last major acquisition was a $1.2 billion buyout from collaborative video editing and review software maker Frame.io in August 2021.

The company also reported $4.43 billion in third quarter revenue when announcing its results on Thursday. Adobe shares traded 8.43% lower in premarket trading after its fourth-quarter forecast fell short of analysts’ expectations.

Figma CEO and co-founder Field will continue to lead the company when the deal closes in 2023. Adobe expects Figma to double its annual recurring revenue to $400 million in 2022. Forbes reported that the startup generated $75 million in revenue in 2020.

Field and Wallace met while studying computer science at Brown University and decided to start a business together. Field earned a Thiel scholarship and dropped out of college in 2012 to start building what would become Figma. The startup’s early backers included Index Ventures, Greylock Partners and Phoenix Court.

It took Field and Wallace four years to launch the first public version of their virtual sketchboard for designers, but they now count Netflix, Airbnb and Zoom as customers. “The entire economy is moving from physical to digital, and design is just the final chapter,” Field said. Forbes in 2021. “And design is a team sport, it’s collaborative in nature.”