In the summer of 2025, the design technology world stands at a crossroads. Marco Squarci’s widely shared LinkedIn post captures this moment perfectly: Figma, the collaborative design platform that revolutionised digital product creation, is preparing for its highly anticipated IPO. The company’s financials speak volumes: $821 million in revenue over the past 12 months, a 91% gross margin, and a 132% net dollar retention rate. These numbers confirm Figma’s dominance and maturity in the SaaS landscape.

Yet as Figma steps into the public spotlight, a new challenger is capturing the industry’s imagination. Lovable, an AI-native design tool, has achieved remarkable growth in record time. In just twelve months, Lovable has gained $75 million in annual recurring revenue and attracted over 30,000 paying customers.

The company recently raised $150 million in funding at a valuation of $1.8 billion, making it one of Europe’s fastest-growing technology companies. Lovable’s approach differs fundamentally from Figma’s: instead of traditional drag-and-drop interfaces, it enables users to design and build apps or websites simply by describing what they want through a chat interface—a process they call “vibe coding.”

Craft vs. accessibility

This rivalry extends beyond financial figures or product features. It represents a clash of philosophies about the future of design. Figma has always championed design as a collaborative, intentional craft. Its platform serves professionals who value iteration, teamwork, and creative control.

Lovable, conversely, positions itself as the champion of speed and accessibility, lowering creation barriers by letting users generate complex designs through natural language prompts. A critical question emerges: Does the future of design lie in democratisation and rapid iteration, or does this approach risk sacrificing the depth and intentionality that skilled designers bring to their work?

Legal manoeuvres and cultural clashes

The tension between these companies intensified when Figma sent Lovable a cease-and-desist letter regarding the use of “Dev Mode,” a term Figma trademarked in 2023. Although “dev mode” is widely used in the technology industry, Figma’s legal action signals its willingness to defend its intellectual property as competition intensifies.

Lovable’s response was characteristically irreverent—using social media to poke fun at the situation and rally its community. This episode highlights not just a legal dispute but a broader cultural clash between established players and bold newcomers.

Beneath these headline-grabbing moves lies a deeper question about the future structure of the design tool industry. Figma’s recent product announcements, including Figma Make, Figma Sites, and Figma Buzz, demonstrate it isn’t resting on its laurels. These new offerings aim to compete directly with emerging tools from Webflow and Framer, as well as Canva, while integrating AI more deeply into the design workflow.

However, as Marco Squarci points out, retrofitting AI into an existing platform presents a very different challenge than building an AI-native product from the ground up, as Lovable has done.

Industry stakes: Figma or Lovable?

The stakes are high for everyone involved. If Figma and other major platforms continue to consolidate power, the industry could become more closed and less innovative. Yet Lovable’s rapid rise suggests there’s still room for upstarts willing to rethink the user experience from scratch.

The AI boom holds the promise of accelerating design processes and making them more accessible. However, it also raises concerns about creativity becoming commoditised and power centralising among those controlling the most advanced models and extensive datasets. Despite these challenges, the potential of AI in design is a beacon of hope, promising a future of faster, more accessible, and innovative design solutions.

For the design community, this moment is both exciting and uncertain. The decisions made now, whether to embrace AI-native tools like Lovable for their speed and accessibility, or to defend the craft and intentionality that platforms like Figma have long supported, will shape the industry for years to come. As the boundaries between designer, developer, and AI blur, the question of who shapes tomorrow’s digital world becomes increasingly urgent, underscoring the weight of the industry’s current decisions.

The outcome of the Figma versus Lovable rivalry will not only determine the next design tool market leader but also set the direction for digital creativity in the era of AI. The choices made now by companies, creators, and communities will shape the industry for years to come, underscoring the significant impact of the current industry dynamics.