Figma acquires Bud AI team to expand into app prototyping
Figma has acquired the team behind AI platform Bud to integrate automated coding into its design canvas, a shift that stands to reshape how European businesses build applications.
Figma has acquired the team behind Bud, formerly known as Orchids, marking a clear push to integrate automated coding directly into its core platform. The deal represents a strategic effort by the company to move beyond being a purely visual design application.
Bud began as a Y Combinator-backed startup allowing users to generate apps for web, mobile, Slack and browsers through prompt-driven vibe-coding. It later rebranded as an AI agent platform capable of browsing the web and writing code to automate tasks across various services.
“Figma is one of, if not the, defining product companies of our time to capitalize on this. It’s where ideas start, iterate, and come to life, and a natural home for this exciting new era of work,” Bud CEO Kevin Lu posted on X.
Under the terms of the acquisition, both the Bud and Orchids platforms will shut down completely by July 18. Existing users are being required to migrate their projects before that date.
The deal follows a report earlier this year in which the BBC cited a security researcher noting that apps built on Orchids were susceptible to cyberattacks. This prior scrutiny presents a potential compliance consideration for European businesses evaluating Figma's upcoming AI tools.
Figma has not specified exactly how it intends to deploy the newly acquired team. However, the company’s recent product roadmap points to a strategy of moving beyond static design concepts into actual software prototyping.
Last year, the company released Figma Make, a tool designed specifically for creating web applications. So far this year, Figma has integrated its platform with external tools like Codex and Claude Code, while also rolling out its own proprietary agents.
For European companies and investors, the acquisition underscores a broader industry shift where design platforms are actively absorbing developer workflows. By bringing AI coding agents directly to its canvas, Figma is positioning itself to capture a larger share of the software development lifecycle.
