What is Linear?
Purpose-built issue tracking, project planning, and product development platform for modern software teams.
- Category
- Product development and issue tracking
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA / remote-first
- Founded
- 2019
- Employees
- About 80 reported
- Total funding
- $134.2M reported
- Valuation
- $1.25B reported Series C valuation
What is Linear?
Linear is a developer-first product development system for issues, projects, cycles, roadmaps, customer requests, AI workflows, and integrations. It is private, remote-first, and reportedly raised an $82 million Series C in 2025 at a $1.25 billion valuation.
Linear was founded by Karri Saarinen, Tuomas Artman, and Jori Lallo to make software planning faster and less bureaucratic for product and engineering teams. Its product combines issue tracking, cycles, projects, initiatives, triage, customer requests, integrations, and an increasingly AI-oriented workflow layer.
The company is small relative to its enterprise software impact. Sequoia says Linear was founded in 2019 and partnered in 2019; TechCrunch and Sacra report roughly 80 employees and a 2025 Series C at a $1.25 billion valuation.
For sellers, Linear is a concentrated technical buyer: teams are remote-first, product-led, and likely to evaluate tools by performance, design quality, API fit, security, and whether the product reduces coordination work rather than adding process overhead.
What does Linear offer?
Linear offers issues, cycles, projects, initiatives, customer requests, triage, roadmaps, releases, AI workflows, integrations, API/webhooks, and enterprise controls.
- Issues· Work tracking
- Cycles· Planning
- Projects and initiatives· Roadmap
- Customer requests· Product feedback
- Triage· Support/product ops
- AI and agent workflows· AI
- GraphQL API and webhooks· Developer platform
How does Linear make money?
Linear makes money through per-seat SaaS plans, with a free tier, paid team plans, and custom enterprise agreements.
Linear’s official pricing includes a free plan plus paid plans such as Basic at $10 per user per month billed yearly, with higher tiers adding more teams, security controls, SLAs, releases, AI and agent workflows, and enterprise features. Enterprise pricing is quote-based.
Growth is driven by product-led adoption inside engineering and product teams, then expansion into larger organizations through security, governance, customer request workflows, and integrations with GitHub, Slack, Figma, and support tools.
Because Linear is private, this profile does not invent revenue or customer-level contract sizes. The durable seller signal is that Linear has high standards for developer experience and will prefer tools that fit a fast, opinionated, API-driven operating model.
Who leads Linear?
Linear is led by co-founder and CEO Karri Saarinen alongside co-founders Tuomas Artman and Jori Lallo.
- Karri SaarinenCo-founder and CEOCo-founder since 2019Former Airbnb designer; leads product taste, strategy, and company direction.
- Tuomas ArtmanCo-founderCo-founder since 2019Former Coinbase engineer; leads technical and product architecture.
- Jori LalloCo-founderCo-founder since 2019Former Coinbase engineer; builds core product and engineering systems.
How do you contact Linear's leadership?
Linear does not publish verified personal executive emails in the sources used. Use official support, sales, careers, and product contact flows rather than guessed personal emails.
Public contact/support routes; personal executive email format not verifiedHow much funding has Linear raised?
Linear has reportedly raised $134.2 million: a $4.2 million Sequoia-led seed in 2019, a $13 million Sequoia-led Series A in 2020, a $35 million Accel-led Series B in 2023, and an $82 million Accel-led Series C in 2025 at a $1.25 billion valuation.
Linear’s seed financing was reportedly $4.2 million led by Sequoia in 2019, matching Sequoia’s portfolio page that lists Linear as founded and partnered in 2019. In December 2020, Linear announced a $13 million Series A from Sequoia after early product-market pull with software teams.
In September 2023, Linear raised a $35 million Series B led by Accel, with Sequoia participating. In June 2025, Linear reportedly raised an $82 million Series C led by Accel at a $1.25 billion valuation, bringing total reported funding to about $134.2 million.
The valuation moved because Linear broadened from issue tracking into a system of record for modern software work, customer requests, and AI-assisted development workflows. It remains private, so revenue, burn, and profitability after 2021 are not invented here.
How did Linear get here?
Linear moved through a series of financing, product, and scale milestones.
- 2019FoundedKarri Saarinen, Jori Lallo, and Tuomas Artman found Linear.
- 2020Series ALinear raises a $13M Series A led by Sequoia.
- 2021Series BLinear raises growth capital as product-led adoption expands across software teams.
- 2023Series B extensionLinear announces additional funding and broader company-building momentum.
- 2024Workflow expansionLinear extends from issue tracking into planning, projects, and product workflows.
- 2026Private companyLinear remains a private workflow software company with strong startup and software-team adoption.
Who are Linear's competitors?
Linear competes with issue trackers, work management suites, product planning tools, and open-source project management platforms.
- JiraEnterprise incumbent with broad agile and ITSM ecosystem.
- AsanaCross-functional work management rather than developer-first issue tracking.
- ShortcutSoftware-team planning tool with lighter enterprise footprint than Jira.
- PlaneOpen-source project management and issue tracking with self-hosting appeal.
- GitHubIssues and Projects live close to code and pull requests.
Linear — frequently asked questions
