Investing in the Future of Creativity: Announcing the Adobe Fund for Design

At Adobe, we’ve always believed that we can change the world through exceptional digital experiences – and we’re inspired, every day, by the people that use our products to do so. This has driven our passion for building technology that empowers individuals to express themselves creatively and to design experiences that transform businesses.

As we continue investing in this space, with new products like Adobe XD CC, Dimension CC, and Spark, we want to support the entrepreneurs and emerging teams that are pushing the boundaries of existing apps and workflows. That is why we are launching the Adobe Fund for Design, $10 million to support teams building products and services that that will help shape the future of creativity and design.

Creative workflows are made up of hundreds of tools and services, from plugins or add-ons that automate repetitive tasks or add custom functionality, to products that enable seamless collaboration between teams, to workflow management systems for governing the entire content creation process. The number of tools used daily to get work done has only increased with the evolving and increasingly niche challenges of creative and design teams – and with this evolution comes the need for openness and interoperability. That’s why we’re investing in making Creative Cloud the platform for creativity and XD the platform for design tooling innovation. Platforms are foundations; they are made to be built upon and integrated with. Through integrations with Creative Cloud, we can make our customers more productive and happier by connecting them, seamlessly, to all the services they use and an endless supply of tools that extend our applications in powerful and custom ways.

Through the Adobe Fund for Design, we are inviting the larger community – developers, entrepreneurs and users – to build on the platform and establish this thriving and interconnected ecosystem. We’re looking for talented individuals or early stage companies that have a demonstrated commitment to empowering the creative world. Ideal candidates are either building innovative products for creative and design customers or are creating plugins and integrations to our applications, with a focus on the experience design space and Adobe XD CC.

We are going to start by focusing on screen design and Adobe XD CC, our all-in-one design and prototyping app, because designers are increasingly crucial to businesses and the needs of design teams are progressing rapidly. We are excited to see how developers extend XD, and other CC apps, to enable our customers to do more within the tools they use every day, or build new products that complement and enhance screen design.

With more than 30 years of serving this community and building industry-leading technology, we feel that Adobe has a special role in supporting the developers and entrepreneurs that are defining the future of this field. The fund will not only provide financial resources in grants or equity investments, but time with Adobe and industry experts, free Adobe products, early access to technology and partnership and marketing opportunities.

Fund recipients, in turn, will be uniquely positioned to support Adobe’s vision to give everyone, from emerging artists to global brands, everything they need to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences.

In our mission to change the world through digital experiences, we want to empower our customers with game-changing products and Creative Cloud-powered experiences wherever and however they work. We believe that there is an opportunity to leverage Adobe technology and resources to build a foundation for the next generation of powerful and interconnected tools. This investment, we believe, will help unlock innovation and cultivate an ecosystem of products and integrations that will ultimately improve the lives of creatives. I am incredibly excited to continue to learn from the community, partner with them to take XD and CC to the next level and enable them to help shape the future of design and creativity.

You can learn about XD extensibility and get early access to the platform here.

Apply for the fund here, and if you have questions about the fund, please email adobefund@adobe.com.