Figma Expands in India, Aims Beyond Design
▼ Summary
– Figma is expanding in India by opening a Bengaluru office and hiring local talent to strengthen ties with its large user community and attract developers.
– The company aims to shift the perception of Figma from a design-only tool to a platform for end-to-end product creation, especially among India’s vast developer population.
– India is Figma’s second-largest user base globally, with over 40% of its top 100 Bombay Stock Exchange companies as customers and significant adoption of its AI feature, Figma Make.
– Figma’s expansion includes introducing developer-focused features like dev mode and improved code-export options, influenced by feedback from the Indian user community.
– The Bengaluru office will initially focus on sales and marketing, serving major Indian clients like Swiggy, Infosys, and Airtel, as international markets drive 85% of Figma’s overall usage.
Figma is significantly expanding its operations in India, establishing a local office in Bengaluru and actively recruiting local talent to strengthen connections with one of its largest user communities. This strategic move aims to broaden the platform’s appeal beyond designers to include developers, positioning India as a pivotal market for growth. With India hosting one of the world’s biggest developer populations, Figma sees immense potential in transforming how these professionals engage with its tools.
Originally launched in 2012 by Dylan Field and Evan Wallace, Figma disrupted the design industry by introducing a browser-based interface when desktop applications dominated the field. Despite early doubts, the platform evolved into a favorite for UX and product teams seeking seamless collaboration. Now, Figma is channeling that same innovative spirit toward developers, believing India offers the ideal environment to accelerate this shift.
India boasts one of the largest developer communities globally, a fact already leveraged by tech leaders like Microsoft, which reports nearly 22 million Indian developers on GitHub. Although roughly 40% of Figma’s global users are developers, the company still confronts a perception gap, many in India view Figma mainly as a design resource rather than an end-to-end product creation platform.
Abhishek Mathur, Figma’s VP of Engineering, emphasized the company’s goal: “India has such a large population of developers who might not currently think of Figma as their tool, and that’s the thing that we want to do. A lot of it is being done by the community, but we want to be part of that activity as well, and share our story of enabling developers to be more than just writing code.”
The new Bengaluru office marks Figma’s latest step in its international expansion, joining existing locations in Tokyo, Singapore, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, and São Paulo. Until now, Figma supported Indian users remotely via its Singapore team, but growing user numbers and community engagement underscored the need for a physical presence.
Mathur highlighted that international markets account for as much as 85% of Figma’s overall usage, with India ranking as its second-largest user base after the United States. By the third quarter of 2025, Figma served customers across 85% of India’s 28 official states, and more than 40% of the top 100 Bombay Stock Exchange-listed companies were using the platform.
Globally, Figma reports 13 million weekly active users, though specific figures for India remain undisclosed. Mathur described the country as “a very large portion” of its user base, with the Indian community alone exceeding 25,000 members.
In May, Figma rolled out a suite of AI-powered capabilities intended to extend the software’s utility beyond design teams. These features place Figma in competition not only with Adobe and Canva but also with AI coding platforms like Replit and Lovable. One standout offering, Figma Make, lets users generate functional web applications from simple text prompts and collaborate on both design and code within a unified workspace.
Mathur noted that India has emerged as the biggest market for Figma Make, with local users creating over 800,000 prototypes to date. Adoption among Indian developers is also rising, particularly for dev mode, introduced in 2023 to help translate designs into code efficiently.
“The first spectrum of imagination to production is what we are seeing in terms of differences between India and the rest of the globe,” Mathur observed. “The usage patterns are similar, but the scale of operations in some of the things is very challenging.”
Initially, the Bengaluru office will concentrate on enhancing sales and marketing efforts within India. Figma’s client roster in the country includes prominent consumer startups like CRED, Groww, Fynd, Swiggy, and Zomato, alongside IT service leaders Infosys and TCS, and consumer brands such as Airtel, CARS24, and Myntra.
In 2024, approximately half of Figma’s revenue came from outside the U.S., with Mathur identifying India as an “important market,” though he did not specify its exact revenue share. User feedback from India is already shaping product development; for example, requests for better code export options led to upgrades that deliver higher-quality output.
“We want to continue to do events, understand and work with our customers, small to large, and as time progresses, we might add other possibilities as well,” Mathur said, signaling Figma’s long-term commitment to the Indian market.
(Source: TechCrunch)
