Notion
Unicorn Β· $10BSan Francisco, US Β· Founded 2016 Β· 7,624 employees on LinkedIn Β· 21 known investors
Notion offers a workspace platform for teams to manage projects, documentation, and tasks through customizable views like Gantt charts and Kanban boards. The product serves small to large organizations across multiple functions including engineering, product, and design teams.
Also known as Notion Labs, Inc. Β· Notion Labs, Incorporated
Investors Β· 21
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Also in the syndicate Β· 3
Valuation Β· disclosed
Disclosed eventsSource: SEC prospectus filings, and round valuations the company or its investors disclosed β follow each entry's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Notion, developed by Notion Labs, Inc., is a productivity and note-taking application that functions as a single workspace for note-taking, knowledge management, data organization, and project and task tracking. It is available on the web and as desktop (Windows, macOS) and mobile (iOS, Android) applications, and is localized into roughly 17 languages including English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, and several beta Nordic languages. Content is composed of "blocks" that hold text, images, subpages, and databases; databases can be rendered in views such as tables, lists, calendars, timelines, and (per a 2026 mobile release) maps. The platform also includes kanban boards, wikis, comments and mentions, real-time collaboration, and the ability to publish any page as a public website.
The company has layered AI functionality across the product. Notion AI, a chatbot released in February 2023, assists with writing, summarization, tone adjustment, translation, and question-answering over workspace content. Later additions include AI Meeting Notes with speaker labels, Notion 3.0 with an AI agent capability (September 2025), Custom Agents (launched February 2026, with over one million reported built by users), and a Developer Platform (May 2026) introducing Workers β a sandboxed environment for running custom code β plus database sync from external systems such as Salesforce and Zendesk and orchestration of external agents including Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Decagon. A standalone Notion Calendar app launched in January 2024, and a Notion Agents iOS app launched in July 2026.
Adjacent products have also been retired: Notion Mail, a Gmail-based email client released in April 2025 that used infrastructure from the acquired company Skiff, was announced in June 2026 for shutdown across web, desktop, and iOS on September 22, 2026, with the company stating a shift toward agent-based email workflows.
Founding story
Sources state the company was created as a startup in San Francisco and encountered financial difficulties during the early development of the app before the 1.0 release in August 2016; no further founding narrative is documented in the material.
Business model
Notion operates a freemium software subscription model, offering free personal and student use alongside paid plans for individuals and teams. Free personal accounts include unlimited notes and docs, access to templates, and limits on file upload size (5MB) and guest collaborators (5); the Personal Pro tier removes those limits and adds 30-day version history and priority support. Team workspaces begin with a free trial subject to block, guest, and version-history limits before requiring an upgrade to Plus, Business, or Enterprise plans. Newer AI and developer capabilities are metered through a credits dashboard, with Notion Workers free during beta on Business and Enterprise plans.
Subscription tiers (free Personal, Personal Pro, Plus, Business, Enterprise) plus usage-based credits for AI and Workers consumption; some templates are fee-based.
Traction
Wikipedia records 1 million users announced in September 2019 and 20 million users at the time of the October 2021 round; a third-party profile states the platform serves over 100 million registered users. The iOS app has approximately 90,000 ratings averaging 4.8 and ranked #41 in the Productivity chart at time of capture. The company reported over one million Custom Agents built by users since that feature launched in February 2026.
Latest developments
2026 releases include Notion 3.6 in July 2026 with external agent orchestration (Claude and Cursor as the first supported external agents), speaker labels in AI Meeting Notes, and interactive HTML blocks; a Notion Agents iOS app (July 2026); shareable Notion Workers and Worker usage tracking in the credits dashboard (July 2026); calendar tools for agents (July 2026); a high contrast accessibility mode (July 2026); Custom Agent context sharing from the Share menu (August 2026); a simplified model picker with per-model scorecards (August 2026); and an in-sidebar Developer Portal with a developer bar for retrieving API object IDs (August 2026). Notion Mail is scheduled to shut down on September 22, 2026.
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Positioned as a consolidated alternative to using multiple separate tools for notes, tasks, projects, and databases; press coverage has framed it as a challenger to Atlassian, and the calendar product has been compared to Calendly for scheduling. Third-party sources report over 100 million registered users and a $10 billion valuation set in the October 2021 round.
Combines note-taking, documents, wikis, databases, and project tracking in one customizable workspace rather than separate applications, with a flexible block model and extensive templates. More recent differentiation centers on embedding AI directly in the workspace: agents that can act on workspace data, orchestration of third-party external agents (Claude, Cursor) alongside team work, and a developer platform for running custom code and syncing external systems.
Technology
Block-based document architecture in which every line or paragraph is a block that can contain text, images, subpages, or databases, with databases surfaced through multiple view types (table, list, calendar, timeline, board, map). Layered on top are large-language-model features: Notion AI for writing, summarization and search; AI Meeting Notes with microphone-based speaker identification; Custom Agents; a model picker exposing multiple models with scorecards for speed, intelligence, and cost; interactive HTML blocks generated by agents; and Notion Workers, which execute custom code in a secure sandbox on Notion infrastructure to sync data and power agent tools and webhook automations. Integrations connect tools such as Figma, Slack, GitHub, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Gmail, and a public API with a developer portal, access tokens, and logs is available.
Go-to-market
Product-led distribution through a free tier for personal and student use and free team trials that convert to paid plans, supported by web, desktop, and mobile app distribution (the iOS app is published by Notion Labs, Incorporated and holds a 4.8 rating from about 90,000 ratings and an App Store Editors' Choice award). A template gallery with over 10,000 templates, customer stories, a help center, and a "request a demo" path for workplace buyers supplement self-serve adoption.
Individuals, students, and teams ranging from startups to large enterprises. Third-party profile material cites corporate customers including Figma, Amazon, and Pixar, and the company's site states that 98% of the Forbes Cloud 100 use Notion. Functional users span engineering, product, design, support, security, operations, and marketing workflows.
Geography
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. The product is distributed globally via web, desktop, and mobile apps and localized in roughly 17 languages. Notion acquired India-based Automate.io in September 2021.
History
Notion Labs, Inc. was founded in San Francisco in 2013 by Ivan Zhao, Akshay Kothari, Chris Prucha, Jessica Lam, Simon Last, and Toby Schachman, backed by an initial seed round of roughly $2 million; a third-party profile lists only Ivan Zhao and Simon Last as founders. Notion 1.0 shipped in August 2016 and Notion 2.0 in March 2018, when the company had fewer than 10 employees. The company announced 1 million users in September 2019, raised $50 million led by Index Ventures in January 2020 at a $2 billion valuation, and removed the block limit on its free plan in May 2020. It acquired Automate.io (September 2021), raised $275 million at a $10 billion valuation in October 2021, acquired calendar app Cron (June 2022) which became Notion Calendar, released Notion AI (February 2023), launched Notion Calendar as its first standalone app (January 2024), acquired Skiff (February 2024), shipped Notion Mail (April 2025), released version 3.0 with AI agents (September 2025), launched Custom Agents (February 2026) and a Developer Platform (May 2026), and announced the September 2026 shutdown of Notion Mail.
Risks & controversies
Notion is discontinuing Notion Mail on September 22, 2026, requiring users to export drafts, scheduled emails, snippets, and auto-label instructions, indicating product-line retirement risk after acquisition-driven expansion. Source data is inconsistent on basic facts β the founding year is given as 2013 by Wikipedia and a third-party profile versus 2016 internally, founder lists differ between sources, total funding is reported as both $340.2M and $343.2M within the same third-party profile, and headcount is stated as both 700 and a 1,001β5,000 band. User reviews cite the absence of offline access and limited color customization.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Founder mafia
The Notion mafia β14 people who came through Notion went on to found or lead other companies.
+ 2 more
Competitors Β· 10
by search overlap
Companies competing with Notion for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline Β· 28
launches, deals, and filingsNew Developer section for managing Workers, connections, and personal access tokens, plus a developer bar for copying API object IDs.
Model picker with shortlist and per-model scorecards comparing speed, intelligence, and cost.
Workers can be shared with teammates via 'Can connect' or 'Full access' permissions.
Added orchestration of External Agents (Claude and Cursor), speaker labels in AI Meeting Notes, expanded file type support (Excel, PowerPoint), and interactive HTML blocks.
Notion said it would discontinue Notion Mail on web, desktop and iOS on 2026-09-22 and focus instead on agent-based email workflows; users must export drafts, scheduled emails, snippets and auto-label instructions.
Introduced Workers for running custom code in a secure sandbox, database sync from external sources such as Salesforce and Zendesk, and external agent integration with Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and Decagon.
User-configurable agents; over one million reportedly built by users by May 2026.
AI-powered, Gmail-based email client with Notion AI integration for drafting replies, scheduling meetings, and searching messages.
Acquisition of privacy-focused productivity platform Skiff, whose infrastructure was later used for Notion Mail.
First standalone Notion app, with deeper Notion integration and a scheduling tool comparable to Calendly.
Release of the Notion AI chatbot service usable within the workspace; third-party profile dates the launch 2023-02-23.
Acquisition of calendar app Cron, later developed into Notion Calendar.
Round led by Coatue Management and Sequoia Capital; company reported 20 million users at the time.
$275M source β
Acquisition of India-based integrations startup Automate.io to accelerate product expansion.
Notion removed the 1,000-block limit for free-plan users.
Second major version released while the company had fewer than 10 employees.
First public release of the Notion app, adopted early by tech enthusiasts.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- Notionnotion.com Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Notion do?
- Notion is a San Francisco software company offering an AI-enabled workspace for notes, docs, databases, and project management.
- Who are Notion's investors?
- Notion's investors include A.Capital Ventures, A*, Draft Ventures Llc, First Round Capital, Kearny Jackson, Long Journey Ventures, Night Capital, Altos Ventures and 10 more.
- Where is Notion headquartered?
- Notion is headquartered in San Francisco, US.