Iconiq’s Will Griffith explains how his firm celebrated Figma’s IPO and why investors sold shares

Will Griffith had just two months in his job as an initiative investor for Iconic when he met a 19 -year -old college dropout named Dylan Field. It will handle one of its signature seed investment in a startup called Figma.

Thursday, Figma became public with stock popping $ 33 is $ 115.50 from the IPO opening price and a 47 billion dollar market caps off. And Griffith could not be even more persuaded for his compliment for the company.

Griffith smiled, “You go to one of these user conferences and like you, there are 15,000 people and there are 5,000 Figma tattoos,” Griffith smiled. From the very first day, the founders of this organization who provide software for the designers “had a view to conquer and distribute and re -define this ecosystem.”

Nevertheless, the co-founder Dylan Field and Ivan Wallace were unmatched in that first meeting in the 27th. And at that moment, there was iconic too. It was then known as the most confidential resource management agency of Silicon Valley, such as Mughals, such as Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsy.

Figure, of course, was already a champion: Field was in the LinkedIn under his then CEO Jeff Weaer. Weiner was an angel investor (and bought more Stock in the round afterVery) and induced the field with Griffith.

“We are connected to the figure before we have the initial funds before we have the initial fund,” Griffith told TechCrunch. Investors remember trekking to meet the founders. “It was like two boys and dogs in an apartment in Palo Alto and they were working on the design of this new graphics and a browser.”

When editing a photo in a browser, the demo showed how to lightly manipulate. At that time, webGL-based browser-based design software was revolutionary. The Graphics Design Market of Tech Giant Adobe was locked with its desktop software. Griffith reminded, “I thought it was insane.”

This idea was so disrespectful to Alexis Ohanian, who was investing from his then FIRM, when he saw the product on Figa on the 20th 2016, he mentioned. A tweet this weekThe The Ohanian Figma has called Figma a member of his “embarrassing Miss-Lalika”.

However, Griffith wrote a check. Seed shares, however, were priced at $ 0.0878 per fig Published Its in S -1. And Griffith wrote more checks because Figma raised the extra round. Pitchbook estimates that the company has collected about $ 332 million in a total of $ 332 million in a total of 2024.

Griffith said, “We have invested in seeds. We have invested in this series. We have investigated more.

Iconic has not owned at least 5% of the company, a bar that is required to publish its partnership size for the figure. However, it has enough ownership that IPO will be celebrated in iconic offices.

Griffith said “One of the way we celebrate is that we assume that the price of closing day shares on the first day is about to be. This is a forecasting contest around the farm,” Griffith said. “There are some good rewards and rewards.” If anyone nails this number, they can blow air with a healthy cash bonus or even something like Hawaii travel.

As part of this IPO, Griffith has some insights. Was mostly in stock to sell From the betting of investors, GroundThe company said instead of the new shares issued by the company.

“I think it’s very generous that existing investors are willing to sell as much as to make enough supplies for this IPO,” he said.

Figure basic things are so strong that IPO was 40 times oversscreenedAccording to Bloomberg, more investors wanted to share than money.

Griffith explained that investors like isolation it could be almost problematic. He said the largest institutional investors did not bother with any IPO where they could not trade several hundred million valuable shares, he said. And if an IPO does not float enough shares, the prices of the available shares can be artificially inflamed, meaning that the company will not be appropriately valuable. The prices will decrease after the opening day, the company may be artificially underestimated.

Griffith said the figure of figs did not really want to sell shares. “We have been with this business for 20 years, and we have not sold any part. And we are about to be meaningful buyers in the IPO,” he said.

Nevertheless, Griffith emphasized that for figure, IPO Day was just a milestone and last. “I met a young, 19 year old Dylan and we developed a partnership,” he said. He describes himself as “proud” of the field, the Figure CEO, “just mature and grow, but the same vision, morality, truth.”

In the meantime, he says that he will spend the Figure IPO day “meeting with the next generation founders”.