
Photoshop's New AI Tool Wants to Help You Spend Less Time Relighting Photos
Adobe users got a sneak peek at the harmonize tool at last fall's creator conference, Adobe Max, when it was known as Project Perfect Blend. Adobe Applied Research Scientist Mengwei Ren told CNET at the time that the tool uses AI to create new lighting conditions without changing or destroying the underlying image.
"It's generating some lighting effects but preserving the identity, the structure and faces. We don't want to change anything dramatically," said Ren. The AI creates a new lighting, matching the coloring and shading of the original environment, and it's applied as a kind of invisible layer over the existing object in a matter of minutes. It dramatically cuts down the time it would take to manually edit each object in a composite image.
An example of what the harmonize tool can do. The original headshot (left) is illuminated to create a completely relit shot (right).
Adobe/Screenshots by Katelyn Chedraoui
Two other gen AI changes coming for Photoshop users are a new generative upscaling tool and upgrades to its generative remove feature. Upscaling is a common generative AI process that improves an existing image; in this case, the Photoshop tool promises to boost image resolution up to 8 megapixels. More pixels means your imagery should be sharper and clearer. The updated remove tool should be more precise for you to use when selecting objects you want erased, and the affected area should blend more seamlessly for a cleaner final edit.
Read More: I Took Photoshop's Generative AI for a Spin. These Are the Tools That Stuck Out
The new features are rolling out now to Photoshop users. You'll need to use the beta desktop app or web app to use the three new AI tools. The harmonize feature is additionally available through the Photoshop iPhone mobile app. Adobe subscription plans that include Photoshop start at $20 per month.
Adobe is well into its AI era, and this week's drop is just the latest in the company's effort to integrate generative AI across its editing software suite. Photoshop has a lot of AI, including its popular generative fill, expand and remove tools. Its proprietary family of Firefly AI models also let paying subscribers generate images and video clips, now with audio.
Many creators are worried about the development and deployment of generative AI, from the alleged copyright infringement taking place during model training to the AI slop filling online spaces and job security worries. Adobe's AI user guidelines and terms say it doesn't train on customer content, and its models are trained on licensed content (including Adobe Stock) and public domain content.
For more, check out the first AI feature in Premiere Pro and Adobe's new Indigo camera app.
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CNBC
7 minutes ago
- CNBC
Figma's top VCs are sitting on $24 billion worth of stock after massive IPO pop
You can almost smell the bubbly wafting across Silicon Valley. Following Figma's blockbuster market debut on Thursday, four of the most iconic names in venture capital — Index Ventures, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia — are collectively sitting on roughly $24 billion worth of the design software vendor's stock. Until recently, there's been little reason to celebrate. From late 2021, when soaring inflation and rising rates pushed investors out of risky assets, until the middle of 2025, tech IPOs were few and far between, and many of the companies that managed to make it out failed to impress Wall Street. That's left venture firms with scarce returns for the pension funds, endowments and foundations they rely on for funding. The mood is noticeably brighter these days as the Nasdaq trades near a record. Figma is the latest, and perhaps most high-profile, tech company to hit the market, and Wall Street appears to want more. After raising its price range this week and then pricing $1 above the top of that range, Figma shares soared 250% in their first day on the New York Stock Exchange. Investors will admit they got lucky. Figma was supposed to get acquired for $20 billion by Adobe, an agreement the two companies forged in 2022. But the following year, the transaction collapsed after U.K. regulators said the tie-up would harm competition. Figma is now worth more than three times what Adobe was going to pay, closing on Thursday with a market cap of almost $68 billion. CEO Dylan Field, who co-founded the company in 2012, owns a stake worth over $6 billion. Danny Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures and Figma board member, wrote in a blog post on Thursday that the failed acquisition came with "intense pressure and a spotlight few founders ever face." "Dylan remained his usual grounded, transparent self," wrote Rimer, whose firm first bet on Figma in 2013 and is the biggest shareholder, with $7.2 billion worth of stock in the company. "When the deal fell through a year later, he didn't flinch. He turned the page and got right back to building." Figma's offering raised $1.2 billion, with two-thirds of the proceeds going to existing investors. Other than the small slug of stock each of the venture firms sold at $33, the rest of their holdings are subject to a lock-up period, meaning all of the current value is currently just on paper. The vast majority of outstanding shares are locked up for 180 days, so big stock sales can't happen until January. Stablecoin issuer Circle went public in June, and is the other tech IPO that's generated hefty returns for VCs recently. The shares were initially sold at $31 each and are now trading at over $183, leaving investment firms IDG Capital, General Catalyst, Accel and Breyer Capital with a combined stake of close to $12 billion. Circle doubled on its first day of trading. While IPO pops generate a lot of buzz and dramatically lift the value of investors' holdings, they're not universally celebrated. Bill Gurley of Benchmark has for years been a critic of such first-day gains, arguing that bankers leave money on the table for the company while handing deeply discounted stock to new investors. In a series of posts on X on Thursday, Gurley described the Figma outcome as "expected & fully intentional." "Who benefits?" Gurley wrote, shortly after the stock began trading. "The large clients of the investment banks (who return the favor paying for other services). They bought it at $33 last night and can sell it today for over $90." Still, the exuberance in the market is welcome news for most VCs. After a record year in 2021, which saw 155 U.S. venture-backed IPOs raise $60.4 billion, every year since has been relatively dismal, according to data from University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter. There were 13 such offerings in 2022, followed by 18 in 2023 and 30 last year, collectively raising $13.3 billion, Ritter's data shows. The slowdown followed the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate-hiking campaign in 2022, meant to slow crippling inflation. As the lower-growth environment extended into years two and three, venture firms faced increasing pressure to return cash to investors. Earlier this year, the exit environment was still looking ominous. After President Donald Trump's announcement of sweeping tariffs in April, companies including online lender Klarna and ticket marketplace StubHub delayed their IPO plans. The Nasdaq plummeted 10% in a week, as investors fretted over the potential of rising import costs and supply chain disruptions. But Trump later walked back his threats and the trade deals he's landed have resulted in lower tariffs than previously feared. CoreWeave, a provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure, went public just before Trump's initial plans were announced. The stock is now almost triple its IPO price, closing on Thursday at $114.13, though that's down about 38% from its high in June. CoreWeave and Circle have both been big wins for investors, with their market caps now at about $56 billion and $41 billion, respectively. Figma is worth even more. Lynn Martin, president of the NYSE, told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Thursday that she thinks the Figma offering "will open the floodgates." Figma's early investors and big financial winners all published glowing blog posts about Field and the journey he's been on with the company that he started after dropping out of college in 2012. "Figma's relentless focus on product, community, and craft has reshaped how the world designs," wrote Greylock's John Lilly in a post on Thursday. His firm led the $14 Series AI investment in 2015 and now owns a stake worth about $6.7 billion. Kleiner Perkins led the $25 Series B, which was announced in 2018. Its holdings are now valued at $6 billion. "The product was still early, but the love from its small community of users was unmistakable," wrote Kleiner partner Mamoon Hamid, in his post after the IPO. "We were convinced that Figma had the potential to fundamentally reshape how digital products would be designed, and knew we had to be part of it." Two years later, venture powerhouse Sequoia stepped in to lead Figma's $40 million Series C round. Sequoia's Andrew Reed wrote at the time that the company had "the talent and culture to build an enduring, fundamental company." On Thursday, with his firm's stake in Figma approaching $3.8 billion, Reed took to X for his congratulatory remarks. "Congrats to the incredible @Figma team," Reed wrote. "The most creative, determined, imaginative, and positive group of people. I'm just so happy for all of your success."

Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Here's who's getting rich from Figma's blockbuster IPO
Figma went public on Thursday at a $19.3 billion valuation, three years after Adobe was set to acquire the design company for almost the same amount. By market close, Figma's stock had more than tripled its IPO price, valuing the company at nearly $68 billion, giving many of the company's Silicon Valley investors, and one nonprofit, a massive windfall. Figma's IPO has easily become the hottest IPO of the year and a target of pent-up public market demand after a three-year tech IPO drought. The company even threw a massive block party in front of the New York Stock Exchange for the debut. While Figma's stock was priced at $33 a share in the IPO, the stock popped spectacularly on its market debut Thursday, opening at a stunning $85 a share and jumping as high as $124.63. Figma's $33-a-share IPO price already fell above its expected range of $30 to $32 a share, which the company had raised from a previous range of $25 to $28 a share. Figma ultimately raised $1.2 billion in the offering. An IPO wasn't always in the cards for Figma. In 2022, Adobe announced it would acquire its design rival for $20 billion. But the deal fell through the following year due to regulatory pushback. Investors told BI in July that the breakup was a blessing in disguise for Figma. After Adobe paid Figma a $1 billion termination fee, Figma launched four new products, doubling its catalog and reinvigorating its business, investors said. Dylan Field and Evan Wallace cofounded Figma in 2012 and launched its design software to the public four years later. The company has raised about $333 million since its inception, according to PitchBook. Before its IPO, Figma was most recently valued at $12.5 billion in a May 2024 tender offer. We don't know how much Figma's investors paid for their shares, so we can't calculate their profits. We used Figma's share price at Thursday's market close, $115.50, to determine the worth of its major investors' stakes following its listing. A Figma spokesperson declined to comment for this story. Here's how much those stakes are worth after Figma's IPO. Index Ventures, an investor: $7.2 billion Index Ventures is the biggest winner in Figma's IPO. The London and San Francisco-based VC firm owns the largest stake in Figma with about 66 million shares, or nearly 13% of the company after the listing. Index Ventures invests in companies at all stages, from seed to IPO. The firm co-led Figma's $3.9 million seed round in 2013 and contributed to each of Figma's subsequent rounds, through its June 2021 Series E. Danny Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures, has served on Figma's board of directors since the firm's initial investment 12 years ago. Rimer joined Index Ventures in 2002. Index Ventures sold about $3.3 million shares in Figma's IPO, assuming it also sold extra shares set aside for strong demand, a common practice in hot IPOs. At the $33 IPO share price, that sale would've brought in nearly $108 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, the firm's remaining stake is worth about $7.2 billion. Greylock Partners, an investor: $6.7 billion San Francisco-based Greylock Partners backs early-stage tech companies with pre-seed, seed, or Series A checks. The firm owns about 12% of Figma after the IPO. Greylock led Figma's $14 million Series A round in December 2015. The firm invested in all subsequent Figma fundraises, including its Series E. Greylock venture partner John Lilly has been a Figma board member since December 2014. Greylock purchased an additional 78,000 shares of preferred Series C stock from another Figma shareholder in 2022, at $32 a share, totaling $2.5 million. Greylock sold about 3.1 million shares in Figma's IPO, assuming a full sale of its extra shares. At the $33 IPO share price, that sale would've brought in $101 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, the firm's remaining stake is worth about $6.7 billion. Dylan Field, CEO and cofounder: $6.3 billion Field owns about 57 million shares, or about 11% of Figma. He chairs the board and also serves as its president and CEO. The 33-year-old hails from the Bay Area and studied computer science at Brown University, where he met cofounder Evan Wallace. Field received a Thiel fellowship at 19, and left school to build the company. It wasn't always smooth sailing. He discussed early challenges with Business Insider, including contending with disaffected employees and learning how to pitch investors, all while getting the initial product to market over the years. Field also controls his cofounder's shares for voting purposes. With those shares, following the IPO, Field holds about 74% of Figma's voting rights. Field sold 2.35 million shares in the IPO, which at the $33 IPO share price would've brought in about $78 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, Field's remaining stake is worth about $6.3 billion. Kleiner Perkins, an investor: $6 billion Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid has served on Figma's board since December 2017, the same year he joined the multi-stage VC firm. Figma was his first investment at Kleiner Perkins. The firm owns nearly 11% of Figma after the IPO. Kleiner Perkins led Figma's $25 million Series B fundraise in 2018 and contributed in each subsequent round through the company's Series E. Hamid serves on Figma's audit and compensation committees. He has also been an early investor and board member at Slack, Rippling, Glean, and Box. In 2022, Kleiner Perkins purchased about 78,000 Class C Figma shares for $2.5 million. The firm also purchased about 1.3 million Class A shares for roughly $30 million across two transactions from Figma's employees and other investors as part of its 2024 tender offer. Kleiner Perkins sold 2.7 million shares in Figma's IPO, assuming full sale of its extra shares. At the $33 IPO share price, that sale would've brought in about $91 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, the firm's remaining stake is worth about $6 billion. Sequoia Capital, an investor: $3.8 billion Multi-stage mega-firm Sequoia Capital first invested in Figma in 2019, when it led the company's $40 million Series C fundraise. Sequoia now owns nearly 7% of the company after its IPO. The firm invested further in Figma's Series D and E rounds. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed joined Figma's board of directors in February 2024. "This company is considered to be so unique in its market [because] it's not like there is a second-tier company," said Reed in a 2021 Sequoia blog post about Figma's rise. "They're the ones who make the product that works." San Francisco-based Sequoia purchased about 78,000 shares of preferred Series C stock from another Figma investor in 2022 at $32 a share, totaling $2.5 million. The firm sold 1.7 million shares in Figma's IPO, assuming full sale of its extra shares, which at the $33 IPO share price would've brought in about $56 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, Sequoia's remaining stake is worth about $3.8 billion. Evan Wallace, cofounder: $3.1 billion Evan Wallace cofounded Figma with Field, his Brown classmate. He served as CTO for roughly a decade before announcing his departure in 2021. He owns about 5.5% of Figma after its IPO. According to his website, Wallace is currently working on esbuild, an open-source JavaScript and CSS bundler he began designing in 2020. Wallace also created the Skew programming language while at Figma to help the platform render complex designs. Throughout and following his time at Figma, he's programmed multiple apps, games, and graphics algorithms. Wallace's shares are held in a family trust. As Wallace is no longer on Figma's board, Field controls his shares for voting purposes. Wallace didn't sell any shares in the IPO, but he donated a portion of his shares to nonprofit The Marin Community Foundation. The nonprofit sold 13.4 million Figma shares, worth $33 each, in this week's IPO, which means it would have generated some $440 million for the foundation. At Figma's $115.50 closing share price, Wallace's remaining stake is worth about $3.1 billion. Praveer Melwani, CFO: $171 million Melwani joined Figma in 2017 as head of business operations and finance, and ascended to the chief financial officer role in 2022. "I've never been more energized in my career," he wrote at the time. He joined the company when there were fewer than 30 employees and became its first business ops hire, he said in an interview with He added treasurer to his title in 2024. After Figma's IPO, Melwani owns about .3% of the company. Prior to joining Figma, Melwani, who hails from Canada, worked in business operations at NerdWallet and in strategic finance at Dropbox. Melwani sold about 311,000 Class A shares for $7.2 million in Figma's tender offer last year. He sold 47,500 shares in Figma's IPO, which at the $33 IPO share price would've brought in $1.6 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, Melwani's remaining stake is worth about $171 million. Shaunt Voskanian, chief revenue officer: $136 million Voskanian has served as Figma's chief revenue officer since 2021. He owns about .2% of the company after its IPO. Voskanian joined the company after holding various leadership roles at cloud company Datadog. Before that, he worked in sales at Oracle and Google. "When I first met Dylan Field (back in January), I was nervous I might be wasting his time," Voskanian wrote of initially not wanting to leave Datadog. But "there was something about the brand, the growth, the people. I felt an immediate connection." Voskanian previously sold about 191,000 Class A shares valued at $4.4 million in Figma's 2024 tender offer. Voskanian sold 90,000 shares in Figma's IPO, which at the $33 IPO share price would've netted him about $3 million. At the company's $115.50 closing share price, Voskanian's remaining stake is worth about $136 million. Lynn Vojvodich Radakovich, board member: $73 million Vojvodich Radakovich joined Figma in 2019 as an independent board director, following a storied career across tech, marketing, and venture capital. She owns about .1% of the company after its IPO. Until 2017, she served as Salesforce's chief marketing officer and executive vice president. Before that, she was a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. (A16z led Figma's $50 million Series D fundraise in April 2020.) She also spent 10 years as the chairman and CEO of Take 3, a marketing strategy firm she founded in 2006. In addition to her role at Figma, Vojvodich Radakovich serves as a board director at Dell, Ford, and Booking Holdings, the parent company of consumer brands like and OpenTable. Vojvodich Radakovich didn't sell any shares in Figma's IPO. Mike Krieger, board director and an angel investor in Figma: $15 million Mike Krieger, Anthropic's chief product officer, joined Figma's board of directors just this month. He invested early in Figma, per the company, and owns about .03% of it after its IPO. Krieger is best known as the cofounder of Instagram, where he served as CTO for eight years. Before joining Anthropic in May 2024, he started the news aggregator app Artifact in 2021 alongside his Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom, before shutting down the app in early 2024. "Mike is an 'n of 1' product leader who brings both big vision and pixel-level craft to everything he builds," Field said in a July 21 release about Figma's new board directors. "Mike was an early angel investor in Figma, and I've always enjoyed discussing the future of design, product, and AI with him. I'm looking forward to Figma benefiting from his perspective as well." Krieger didn't sell any shares in Figma's IPO. Kelly Kramer, board director: $6.5 million Kramer joined Figma's board of directors in 2021 to provide additional finance and management expertise, per Figma's S-1. She owns about .01% of the company after its IPO. Kramer previously spent eight years at Cisco, where she served as the tech company's chief financial officer and executive vice president from 2015 to 2020. Before that, she held finance leadership positions at GE Healthcare, a division of General Electric. Kramer also sits on the boards of Coinbase, Snowflake, and Gilead Sciences. She didn't sell any shares in Figma's IPO.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Figma stock soars 250% in first day of trading, valuing company north of $45 billion
After opening for trade just before 2:00 p.m. ET on Thursday at $85 per share, Figma (FIG) closed its first day of trading above $117 on Thursday, rising more than 250% from where the design and collaboration software firm priced its initial public offering at $33 per share. At the close of trading on Thursday, the company was worth more than $45 billion. Shares were halted multiple times due to volatility. The company's IPO process, including both where it priced the debut and how shares traded at the open, showed demand remains strong for new issues; Figma priced its IPO above expectations for a range of $30-$32. The company raised roughly $1.2 billion in a sale of 36.94 million shares, split between the company's sale of 12.47 million shares and existing shareholders' sale of 24.46 million shares. Figma, helmed by CEO Dylan Field, is set to be the latest indicator of an IPO market that has been strong in 2025, with tech darlings like Circle (CRCL) and CoreWeave (CRWV) seeing shares soar after public debuts earlier this year. Figma's IPO comes after the company abandoned plans to sell itself to digital software giant Adobe (ADBE) in 2023 for $20 billion after European regulators raised anti-competition concerns about the merger between two digital design giants. The company's IPO plans have been closely watched on Wall Street. The Street's $30-$32 pricing expectations, which Figma has now exceeded, were already a raise from the company's own prediction of a $25-$28 pricing. The tech company follows in the footsteps of Circle, which saw shares rise 168% from its IPO price on its first day of trading. Circle is now up more than 510% since its open in June. Fellow IPO darling CoreWeave, which notched only a marginal gain on its first trading session, is up more than 160% since its March debut. Figma's revenue has grown by 46% year over year. More than three-quarters of Forbes 2000 companies use the design software maker's products, according to Figma's offering documents. The success of IPOs like Circle has pushed the market back toward the year of dealmaking Wall Street M&A bankers had been calling for until that was thwarted by a widespread market freeze following tariff uncertainty in April. The Renaissance IPO Index, run by IPO data firm Renaissance Capital and tracking public offering performance, came back after an "April freefall" to deliver an "explosive rally to end [Q2] up 20%, outperforming the S&P 500 (+11%)," according to the firm's Q2 quarterly review. Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @byjakeconley or email him at