Amid stiff competition from Figma and Adobe, InVision is the latest unicorn to shutter. We dig into the data.
Design software company InVision raised $350M and announced its shuttering at the end of 2024.
The company last raised $115M in 2018 (and did a secondary market transaction in 2021).
It reached unicorn status ($1B+ valuation) in 2017.
The fact that the company didn’t raise in the go-go days of 2020-early 2022 might have been an indication that all was not well.
And as headcount data from CB Insights reveals, the company had been contracting since 2020.
COMPETITION
InVision faced an increasingly competitive design software landscape with 800-pound gorilla Adobe at the top and then the likes of well-run insurgents like Figma and Canva as well.
Adobe acquired Abstract in January 2022. (Adobe attempted to acquire Figma for $20B before the deal fell through due to regulatory hurdles in December 2023.)
Meanwhile, Sketch last raised in March 2019 from Benchmark. The collaborative design startup was bootstrapped prior and its headcount is more stable (only contracting a bit) so it might be a future M&A target by one of the bigger players.
Strategic INITIATIVES
InVision divested at least a portion of the business, selling its Freehand visual collaboration platform to Miro in November 2023.
It’s likely this was part of a larger strategic initiative to sell the company which ultimately didn’t materialize.
Like many other startups, the company was also making minority investments in startups via its $5M InVision Fund established in 2017.
LOOKING AHEAD
Tighter capital markets have placed immense pressure on public and private tech company valuations.
Because investors remain risk-off — especially at the late stages, which account for the majority of today’s unicorns — it makes it more difficult for these companies to raise funding on favorable terms.
In the worst-case scenario, some have shut down altogether — including InVision, which joins a landscape of other fallen unicorns such as Convoy and Olive in recent months.
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