The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Strategic decision · 2021–2026
Penpot's open-source Figma bet: $20.6M raised, 59.5k stars, CSS-first design
Madrid's Kaleidos bets designers will adopt an open-source, CSS-first Figma alternative; Adobe-Figma deal spikes signups 5,600%, repo now 59.5k stars.
Penpot (Kaleidos)
What the business is
An open-source design and prototyping platform from Madrid's Kaleidos where designers and developers collaborate in one tool; designs are expressed in SVG/CSS and can run in the cloud or self-hosted.
Starting capital：$2.6M early round (Athos), $8M Series A led by Decibel (Sept 2022), then a $12M 'Series A+' led by Decibel (Feb 2023) - about $22.6M total.
How it started
Kaleidos, a Madrid consultancy bootstrapped since 2011 (maker of the open-source project tool Taiga), launched Penpot's alpha in 2021. CEO Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz bet that designers, like developers, would want open standards and ownership of their files - and that the 'handoff mindset' between design and engineering was the real problem to kill.
What happened
On Sept 15, 2022 Adobe announced its $20B acquisition of Figma; Penpot's sign-ups jumped 5,600% in a day and on-premise deployments grew 400%, per TechCrunch. Decibel led an $8M Series A that month, and in Feb 2023 a $12M Series A+ followed as users hit 250,000 and GitHub stars hit 20,000, with 20,000 teams including Mozilla, ByteDance, IBM, Google and Microsoft. Penpot 2.0 (April 2024) added CSS Grid and a new components system; by July 2023 tech.eu reported 400,000 users and 80,000 teams.
How it ended up
Still live and scaling: 59.5k GitHub stars and GitHub-trending again in 2026. The project moved from 'everything free forever' to paid hosted tiers (Penpot Cloud) from 2025 while keeping the core open source.
Background
Penpot is an open-source design and prototyping platform built by Kaleidos, a Madrid consultancy bootstrapped since 2011 that also makes the open-source project tool Taiga. Its bet, articulated by CEO Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz, was that designers deserve the same open standards developers have: designs stored as SVG and CSS, no proprietary format lock-in, and a tool where designers and developers collaborate on the same artifact instead of throwing files over a wall.
The wedge was deliberately contrarian. While Figma, Sketch and InVision optimized for designers alone, Penpot positioned design as code: CSS Grid and Flex layouts that export as real HTML/CSS, self-hosting as a first-class option, and a free core. The alpha shipped in 2021, and the project grew steadily - until Adobe announced its $20B acquisition of Figma on Sept 15, 2022, and Penpot's sign-ups jumped 5,600% in a single day, with on-premise deployments up 400%.
Decibel led an $8M Series A that month; by February 2023 a $12M 'Series A+' arrived as users hit 250,000, GitHub stars hit 20,000, and 20,000 teams (Mozilla, ByteDance, IBM, Google, Microsoft) ran the platform. Penpot 2.0 in April 2024 added CSS Grid layout and a rebuilt components system, and tech.eu counted 400,000 users and 80,000 teams by mid-2023. Funding totaled about $22.6M.
By late 2025 Penpot had become one of the most-watched open-source design projects on GitHub: 59.5k stars, a #2 GitHub-trending slot on Feb 4, 2025, another trending run in June 2026, and a 775-point Hacker News thread on Nov 27, 2025. The open question TechCrunch flagged in 2023 - monetization - is being answered with paid Penpot Cloud tiers for teams while the core stays free and self-hostable.
What has to be true
- It bet on open standards (SVG/CSS) at a moment when designers were locked into proprietary formats, making 'no lock-in' a real, differentiated promise.
- The Adobe-Figma deal handed it a once-in-a-cycle trigger: sign-ups +5,600% in one day because the alternative was already built, free, and self-hostable.
- Design-as-code made developers the wedge audience, flipping the 10-to-1 developer-to-designer ratio from a liability into a growth engine.
- It kept the core free through two rounds, deferring monetization to hosted cloud tiers - investor-backed patience that let community momentum compound.
What can be applied
An incumbent's unpopular move hands the open-source alternative its moment - but only if the pitch (no lock-in, self-host) already exists. Keep the core free; monetize hosting.
Aftermath
As of Sept 2, 2026, Penpot is a scaling open-source product under Kaleidos: 59.5k GitHub stars, GitHub-trending streaks in Feb 2025 (best rank #2) and June 2026, and a 775-point HN thread in Nov 2025. The company still faces the monetization question TechCrunch raised in 2023; its answer is paid Penpot Cloud for teams (rolled out from 2025) while the core remains free, self-hostable and under the MPL-2.0 license. Figma, owned by Adobe, remains the category leader, so the bet is not yet settled - but Penpot has turned an open-source design tool into one of GitHub's most-starred projects.
Sources
- Penpot inks $8M as signups for its open source spin on Figma jump 5600% after Adobe's $20B acquisition move
- Penpot, the open source platform for designers and their coders, draws up $12M as users jump to 250K
- How Figma competitor Penpot is championing design collaboration and open source tools for cross-functional teams
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