By Foo Yun Chee
(Reuters) – Adobe’s $20 billion bid for cloud-based designer platform Figma will face a full-scale EU antitrust investigation following EU regulators’ preliminary review, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The move underscores antitrust watchdogs’ wariness of tech deals where bigger companies may acquire rival start-ups to shut them down.
The European Commission earlier this year warned of the threat the deal poses to competition in the market for interactive product design and whiteboarding software.The EU competition enforcer, which is scheduled to finish its initial scrutiny by Aug. 7, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Photoshop maker Adobe declined to comment.
Figma’s Web-based collaborative platform for designs and brainstorming is hugely popular among tech firms including Zoom Video Communications, Airbnb and Coinbase.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
