Figma acquires the team behind Bud and Orchids
By Steven Van ·
Both AI platforms shut down July 18, 2026, leaving users eleven days to export or redeploy their projects.
Figma has acquired the team behind Bud, the AI worker platform, and its predecessor product Orchids. The announcement went out on July 7, and it comes with a hard deadline attached: both Bud and Orchids remain operational only through July 18, 2026. After that, projects hosted on either platform will no longer stay deployed. If you built anything on them, exporting is now urgent, not optional.
Two products, one team, one exit
The startup behind the deal is a Y Combinator-backed team that has moved fast through two identities. It started as Orchids, a vibe-coding platform for spinning up apps across mobile, web, Slack, and the browser from plain prompts. Earlier this year it rebranded and relaunched as Bud, an AI worker with its own computer, browser, phone number, and Telegram, an agent that browses the web, writes code, and automates tasks end to end like a human. Now the whole team lands at Figma, with the announcement calling it "one of, if not the, defining product company of our time" and the right place to keep pushing AI-powered software creation.
The deadline: migrate by July 18
The practical part matters more than the deal terms. Per the announcement, all projects hosted and deployed on Orchids and Bud stop being served after July 18, 2026. That's today, if you're reading this on publication of the shutdown date. Two exits exist:
- Download your projects locally, then redeploy on the host of your choice.
- Push them to GitHub from within the platform, so the code survives even if you sort out hosting later.
Anything left behind goes dark with the platform. If you have client work or live apps on Bud or Orchids, treat this as the last call.
What Figma is buying
Figma didn't spell out what the team will build, and financial terms weren't disclosed, but the direction is easy to read. TechCrunch notes that Figma's recent launches point toward teams building and prototyping real apps rather than ideating over static mocks, and this team brings exactly that DNA: prompt-to-app generation from the Orchids era, plus agentic automation from the Bud era. For Figma, which has been steadily layering AI onto design-to-code workflows, an experienced vibe-coding and agent team is a straight-line fit.
For creators, the sharper lesson is about platform risk in the AI tools gold rush. Bud launched in April, was acquired in July, and gives users eleven days to get out. Keeping your projects exportable, and actually exported, is the difference between an inconvenience and a loss.
Sources: Bud, TechCrunch, Orchids.