InVision vs Proto.io

2020. InVision refreshes its Design System Manager



InVision, the design service is introducing a brand new Design System Manager, giving teams much more flexibility and control in both creating and maintaining their design system. New features include the ability to import reusable design elements in bulk, as well as the ability to upload native Sketch libraries directly to the InVision DSM, allowing design system owners to create and manage their libraries in Sketch and seamlessly move them into InVision. The new DSM also allows for one-click updating of all libraries when a company is going through a rebrand, allowing for the entire design system to get updated at once rather than a process where each individual design asset has to be deleted and replaced with a new one.


2019. InVision acquired design file versioning startup Trunk



Online design software provider InVision has acquired of Australia-based Trunk, that is focused wholly on file versioning for designers. In the world of engineering, GitHub has provided a way for developers to keep versions organized — developers can track changes, create a separate branch to experiment, and collaborate more easily with other developers by merging branches. But the same courtesy hasn’t properly been extended to designers, who usually spend plenty of time scrolling through long email chains searching for the latest version of the attachment. The Trunk team will be focusing their energy on Studio, InVision’s design tool, which launched about a year ago. The launch of Studio was the first time that InVision truly showed its hand, revealing efforts to go well beyond a simple collaboration tool and become the Salesforce of the design world.


2018. Prototyping tool InVision is valued at $1.9 billion



InVision, the startup looking to be the Salesforce of design, has officially achieved unicorn status with the close of a $115 million Series F round, bringing the company’s total funding to $350 million. This deal values InVision at $1.9 billion. InVision started out back in 2011 as a simple prototyping tool. It let designers build out their experience without asking the engineering team to actually build it, to then send to the engineering and product and marketing and executive teams for collaboration and/or approval. Over the years, the company has stretched its efforts both up and downstream in the process, building out a full collaboration suite called InVision Cloud (so that every member of the organization can be involved in the design process), Studio, a design platform meant to take on the likes of Adobe and Sketch, and InVision Design System Manager, where design teams can manage their assets and best practices from one place.


2018. InVision deepens integrations with Atlassian



InVision expanded integration with Atlassian products Confluence, Trello and Jira that allows users see and share InVision prototypes from within those programs. Given the way design and development teams use both product suites, it only makes sense to let these product suites communicate with one another. Specifically, the expanded integration allows designers to share InVision Studio designs and prototypes right within Jira, Trello and Confluence. InVision Studio was unveiled late last year, offering designers an alternative to Sketch and Adobe.


2018. Design tool InVision gets an app store



InVision, the service that wants to be the operating system for designers, introduced its app store and asset store within InVision Studio. In short, InVision Studio users now have access to some of their most-used apps and services from right within the Studio design tool. Plus, those same users will be able to shop for icons, UX/UI components, typefaces and more from within Studio. While Studio is still in its early days, InVision has compiled a solid list of initial app store partners, including Google, Salesforce, Slack, Getty, Atlassian, and more.


2018. InVision acquired design visibility tool Wake



Online design platform InVision has acquired Wake - design tool focused squarely on supporting design visibility throughout a particular organization. Wake allows companies to share design assets and view work in progress as designers build out their screens, logos, or other designs. Design team leaders, or other higher-ups at the company, can upvote certain design projects or give feedback on specific tweaks. One of the most attractive features of Wake is that sharing on the Wake platform was implicit, rather than on InVision where designers have to take an extra step to upload their prototypes on InVision. Wake will continue to operate independently within InVision, but some of its tools will be integrated into the InVision core product. Moreover, as part of the deal, Wake will be introducing a free tier.


2017. Prototyping tool InVision gets $100 million



InVision, the design collaboration tool, announced the close of a $100 million Series E funding round. The company recently announced InVision Studio, which is meant to take on Photoshop and Sketch, giving designers all the tools they need to not only collaborate with their peers, but create the original designs. InVision also acquired Brand.ai, a tool that helps manage design teams at scale with cloud-based asset management. InVision says that more than 70 percent of its users aren’t on the design team, which is part of what has made the company so successful over the past six years.


2017. InVision takes on Photoshop with new Studio



InVision, the company developing collaborative prototyping tool, is taking on the full stack with the announcement of its own Photoshop competitor - Studio. This design tool goes toe-to-toe with Adobe Photoshop and Sketch, offering designers a way to both create and edit their work and then seamlessly send it into the InVision cloud for collaboration. It's built specifically with the modern designer’s workflow in mind. The advanced animation you find on InVision is now available in Studio on the design level, letting designers bring life to static screens without writing code. The new tool is also with a responsive design feature, letting designers automatically check their screens on multiple screen sizes without re-creating them for each different device that customers might be using.


2016. Collaborative prototyping tool InVision raises $55M



Collaborative prototyping and design tool InVision has raised a $55M Series D round. While InVision has no specific plans for the new funding, they will continue making strategic acquisitions where appropriate. The company has bought five smaller design tools over the last year, most of which were done as acquihires. InVision now has more than two million registered users, and is used by 70 percent of the Fortune 100. This includes high-profile technology companies like Facebook, Apple and Disney. In almost all of these organizations the design team are the ones who start the relationship with InVision. But, often times the prototyping tool is quickly adapted by the rest of the organization, even people who aren’t necessarily involved directly in the design process. For example a company’s CFO may use the tool to give feedback on a particular payment flow that previously was only built by developers.


2016. Prototyping suite InVision acquired online web-design tool Macaw



Online prototyping service InVision is acquiring code-based design tool Macaw. The acquisition, which is InVision’s first, comes after a long collaboration between the two companies on products like Motion and Inspect. InVision explained that acquiring Macaw will help them achieve their goal of bridging the design-to-development gap by implementing Macaw’s “design to code” features into InVision’s products. InVision is not shutting down Macaw. The company will indefinitely allow access to the current version, while Macaw’s latest product Scarlet (a live, real-time design environment) will be bundled into other InVision products this year.