Open source projects continue to stand out as compelling alternatives to proprietary software for those who are looking for more flexibility or price leverage in the tools that they use to work. Today one of the juggernauts in the space of design is announcing some funding. Penpot, an open-source platform for designers and the developers to collaborate on work in a single environment, has raised $12 million, equity funding that it will be using to drive more adoption after hitting 250,000 users this month and 20,000 “stars” on GitHub.
For some context on those numbers, Penpot’s user numbers blew up last year in the wake of Adobe acquiring Figma for $20 billion, growing 5,600% to 100,000 users in the space of a couple of weeks. That momentum is still strong if not quite as outsized: Penpot’s 250,000 users today represents a user growth rate of 500%.
“The battleground in design for the