The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Strategic decision · 2011–2024
InVision's $2B design-collaboration bet ended in a 2024 shutdown as Figma ate the market
The prototyping pioneer that hit a $2B valuation lost the design-tool race to Figma and shut its platform down on December 31, 2024.
InVision
What the business is
InVision made browser-based prototyping and design-collaboration tools for product and UX teams, including prototypes, DSM and the Freehand whiteboard.
Starting capital：$1.5M in its first year, $45M in 2015, $100M in 2017 and $115M in 2018, peaking at a $2B valuation (Silicon Republic).
How it started
Founded in New York in 2011 as a prototyping tool, InVision raised steadily and became the default place designers made clickable prototypes. By 2017, around 60% of surveyed UX and product designers used InVision for prototyping, versus only 6% for Figma; the company reached unicorn status in 2017 and a $2B valuation the following year.
What happened
Figma, publicly released in 2016, combined UI design and prototyping in one collaborative editor and overtook InVision: by 2020, 57% of survey respondents used Figma as their main tool. InVision answered with Freehand and other add-ons instead of rebuilding its core. Adobe agreed to buy Figma for $20B in 2022, but that deal collapsed under regulatory scrutiny in late 2023 — and did nothing for InVision, whose product kept losing share. Freehand was sold to Miro at the end of 2023.
How it ended up
On January 4, 2024, CEO Michael Shenkman announced InVision would discontinue its design-collaboration services at the end of 2024. Users were told to export their work, and all documents were deleted shortly after December 31, 2024. Miro absorbed Freehand's users, honoring their subscriptions and offering data migration.
Background
InVision was founded in New York in 2011 as a browser-based prototyping tool, letting designers turn static screens into clickable flows and hand them to engineers without writing code. It raised steadily — $1.5M in its first year, $45M in 2015, $100M in 2017 at a $1B unicorn valuation, and $115M in 2018 — and by 2017 around 60% of surveyed UX and product designers used it for prototyping, versus 6% for Figma.
Its bet was that design work would keep splitting across specialized tools: InVision owned the collaboration layer while other tools owned the canvas. Then Figma, publicly released in 2016, put UI design and prototyping in one real-time collaborative editor. By 2020, 57% of survey respondents used Figma as their main tool, and InVision's add-ons — including the Freehand whiteboard — could not reverse the shift.
In 2022 Adobe agreed to acquire Figma for $20 billion, a deal that collapsed under regulatory scrutiny in late 2023. That did not save InVision: on January 4, 2024, CEO Michael Shenkman announced the platform would shut down at the end of the year. Freehand had already been sold to Miro in late 2023, which took on its users with free access and data migration.
Users were told to export everything, because all documents — prototypes, Freehands, boards and other assets — would be deleted shortly after December 31, 2024. Post-mortems pointed to a failure to innovate beyond the original prototyping product, integration bugs, and a brand-led strategy that was not customer-led as the reasons a $2B design pioneer ended the year as a shutdown notice.
What has to be true
- InVision bet that collaboration could live as a separate layer on top of other tools, so it never had to own the design canvas — the one thing Figma used to absorb the market.
- It was the default prototyping tool in 2017 but treated its lead as durable, responding to Figma with add-ons instead of rebuilding the core product experience.
- Adobe's $20B Figma acquisition attempt, which collapsed in 2023, showed where the market's center of gravity had moved — and left InVision with no buyer and no path.
- When the platform below you adds your feature, the add-on's users become the platform's users; InVision's exit was a managed migration rather than a sale of the company.
What can be applied
Being the popular add-on doesn't protect you when the core tool moves into your feature: a layer that sits on top of another product can be absorbed by the platform below it.
Aftermath
As of the sources reviewed, InVision's platform shut down at the end of 2024 as announced, with all user documents deleted shortly after December 31, 2024. Freehand, the one product spared, had been sold to Miro in late 2023; Miro honored Freehand subscriptions, offered data migration, and began folding the tool's capabilities into its own whiteboard. The InVision brand and company name did not survive as an operating business in the sources reviewed.
Sources
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