Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

A stunning determine is celebrating Figma’s profitable IPO: Lina Khan, former chair of the Federal Commerce Fee.

In a Friday afternoon post on X, Khan linked to an article about Figma’s impressive first day of trading and argued the IPO is “a fantastic reminder that letting startups develop into independently profitable companies, relatively than be purchased up by current giants, can generate huge worth.”

Khan was alluding to a $20 billion deal for Adobe to accumulate Figma that fell through again in 2023. Whereas Adobe cited the shortage of a “clear path” to approval from the European Fee and the U.Ok. Competitors and Markets Authority, the acquisition additionally confronted regulatory scrutiny in america over considerations that it might forestall Figma from being an “efficient competitor” to Adobe.

Khan was FTC chair on the time, main the company to problem Massive Tech on fronts together with startup acquisitions — to the purpose that corporations tried to keep away from this scrutiny with “reverse acqui-hires” wherein they employed key group members and licensed expertise relatively than buying startups outright. (The follow seems to be continuing regardless of Khan’s departure from the FTC.)

Whereas her aggressive stance led to intense criticism from corners of the tech business, she defended her approach by saying that solely a tiny proportion of offers acquired “a re-evaluation” and arguing that founders would finally profit from “a world wherein you’ve six or seven or eight potential suitors” relatively than “only one or two.”

And though Khan — who’d been appointed by President Joe Biden — resigned at the start of the second Trump administration, her feedback Friday paint the Figma IPO as a vindication for her method, calling the IPO “a win for workers, buyers, innovation, and the general public.”

After all, Khan’s critics usually tend to see Figma’s success as coming regardless of regulatory scrutiny, not due to it. For instance, Wedbush Safety analyst Dan Ives told Business Insider, “Figma is an enormous success, however it’s due to the corporate’s revolutionary progress and never as a result of FTC and Kahn.”