Notion Labs

Notion Labs, Inc. is a San Francisco-based software company that develops Notion, a productivity and note-taking application first released in 2016. The product functions as a workspace for note-taking, knowledge management, data organization, and project and task tracking, and is available on the web and as desktop and mobile apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, with localization into a range of European and Asian languages. Content in Notion is composed of "blocks" that can hold text, images, subpages and databases; databases can be rendered as tables, lists, calendars and timelines. The platform also includes kanban boards, wikis, and a library of free and paid templates.

The company has layered artificial-intelligence functionality onto the core workspace. Notion AI, released as a chatbot service in February 2023, assists with writing, summarization, tone adjustment and translation. In September 2025 Notion launched version 3.0 with an AI agent feature, and in May 2026 it introduced the Notion Developer Platform, comprising Workers (a sandboxed cloud environment for custom code), database sync from external systems such as Salesforce and Zendesk, and integration with external coding and support agents including Claude Code, Cursor, Codex and Decagon. The company reported that users had built more than one million Custom Agents since that capability launched in February 2026.

Adjacent products have included Notion Calendar, launched on 17 January 2024 as the company's first standalone app and derived from the acquired Cron calendar application, and Notion Mail, a Gmail-based email client with AI integration released in April 2025 and built largely on infrastructure and staff obtained through the Skiff acquisition. Notion announced in June 2026 that Notion Mail would be discontinued on 22 September 2026 in favor of agent-driven email workflows.

Founding story

Sources state that Notion Labs, Inc. was created as a startup in San Francisco, California, in 2013. Wikipedia lists the founders as Ivan Zhao, Akshay Kothari, Chris Prucha, Jessica Lam, Simon Last and Toby Schachman, while Preqin omits Kothari from the founder list and two secondary profiles name only Ivan Zhao and Simon Last, with Zhao as CEO. Those secondary accounts describe the founders' intent to build "LEGO-style" software that non-technical users could customize without code. The company was initially funded by a seed round of roughly $2 million and encountered financial difficulty during early development; secondary accounts state the team concluded in 2014 that it was on the wrong technology stack, let go of its four employees in 2015, relocated to Japan to focus on development, and that Zhao borrowed $150,000 from his mother to keep the company alive.

Business model

Notion operates a business-to-business software model, selling its workspace platform directly to organizations rather than through resellers, alongside free and paid individual plans. Preqin describes subscription-based services with tiered monthly or annual pricing corresponding to feature and support levels; an enterprise edition adds security controls and automated user-account provisioning for large organizations.

Revenue comes from subscription plans. A 2021 profile lists a free Personal tier (originally limited to 1,000 blocks, a cap later removed), Personal Pro at $4/month billed annually or $5/month, Team at $8/month billed annually or $10/month, and custom-priced Enterprise plans. Notion AI and other add-on capabilities sit within the same paid workspace structure.

Traction

Reported user milestones progress from 1 million users (September 2019) to 4 million (2020, per secondary profiles), 20 million (October 2021) and over 100 million users globally per Preqin. At the October 2021 round the company said its user base had grown 500% since the prior round and that its enterprise edition was growing 350% year over year. Preqin cites adoption by Fortune 100 companies and more than half of Y Combinator startups; secondary profiles state a 2022 growth rate of 240%.

Latest developments

In May 2026 Notion launched the Notion Developer Platform with Workers, external database sync and third-party agent integration, and reported more than one million user-built Custom Agents since February 2026. On 25 June 2026 the company announced it would shut down Notion Mail across web, desktop and iOS on 22 September 2026, stating that more than half of Notion Mail users already manage email through agents without opening the inbox; HIPAA-regulated users were told to transition off by 30 June 2026. Preqin reports that in July 2026 Notion AI, Inc. acquired ZeroEntropy, Inc. to integrate its AI search technology and team.