It’s been nearly two weeks since Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE) announced its plan to spend $20 billion on Figma, the maker of popular design software. In that time, an open-source alternative called Penpot has seen a surge in activity.
Now, Penpot has fresh capital to fuel that growth.
On Tuesday, parent company Kaleidos said it raised $8 million to continue development on Penpot’s collaborative design software. The company said sign-ups jumped 5,600% in a single day after Adobe agreed to buy Figma.
“Penpot is seeing unprecedented growth because designers and developers hate working within the silos and rigidity of traditional enterprise software,” said Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz, co-founder of Penpot and CEO of Kaleidos, in Tuesday’s statement.
While Ruiz-Múzquiz didn’t name Adobe in that quote, he has shown a willingness to besmirch the company more specifically.
“Adobe is a toxic brand for designers, and now Figma is tainted,” Ruiz-Múzquiz told the media. He cited a Figma document full of images reflecting negative sentiment on the deal and said it would have been easier if the buyer had been a different company, such as Microsoft..
Over this past weekend, Penpot upgraded the infrastructure for its hosted web app to accommodate the increased level of activity. On-premises deployments grew 400%, the company said, and the number of starts on the GitHub repository holding Penpot’s open-source code made for the type of hockey-stick chart that Silicon Valley loves.
ADBE shares gave back a dime to $277.47 early Wednesday.
