What is Notion?
All-in-one connected workspace for docs, wikis, and projects, with AI built in.
- Category
- Productivity
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA
- Founded
- 2013
- Employees
- ~800
- Total funding
- ~$343M
- Valuation
- ~$10B (2021)
What is Notion?
Notion is an all-in-one connected workspace that combines documents, wikis, databases, and project management in a single, flexible tool, with AI features woven throughout. Teams use it to replace a stack of separate apps — notes in one place, a wiki in another, tasks somewhere else — with one workspace where everything links together.
Notion is built on a block-based editor: every page is made of modular blocks that can be text, a table, a board, or an embed, and any collection of pages can become a database. That flexibility is both its signature strength and its learning curve — the same primitives can become a personal note, a company handbook, or a lightweight internal app.
The approach has scaled remarkably: Notion now has more than 100 million users worldwide and over 4 million paying customers, and it reached roughly $600 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025, up from about $300 million a year earlier. More than half of its customers now use its AI features, which Notion has moved to the center of the product.
Sources:notion.so
What does Notion offer?
Notion bundles several distinct workspace surfaces into one product, so a single tool can cover writing, knowledge, and planning.
- Docs· Write
- Wikis· Knowledge
- Projects· Plan
- Databases· Organize
- Notion AI· AI
- Calendar· Plan
- Sites· Publish
Sources:notion.so/product
How does Notion make money?
Notion runs a freemium, per-seat SaaS model. Individuals can use it free, which fuels bottom-up adoption; teams then pay for Plus, Business, and Enterprise tiers that add collaboration, security, and admin controls. Notion AI is sold as a paid add-on layered on top of those plans.
Paid plans start at about $10 per user per month for Plus and $20 for Business, with custom Enterprise pricing. In a notable 2025 change, Notion stopped selling its AI as a standalone add-on and bundled it into the Business and Enterprise tiers — nudging teams that want AI to upgrade everyone to a higher-priced plan.
This land-and-expand motion — free personal use converting into paid team workspaces, then growing seat counts and tiers — has been central to Notion's growth, letting it acquire users cheaply through word of mouth and monetize once a team standardizes on Notion as its shared system of record. The efficiency of that motion is why Notion reached a roughly $10 billion valuation on comparatively little capital.
Sources:notion.so
Who leads Notion?
Notion is led by co-founder and CEO Ivan Zhao, alongside co-founder Simon Last and chief operating officer Akshay Kothari, who joined early and built out the company's go-to-market and operations.
- Ivan ZhaoCo-founder & CEOSince 2013Sets Notion's product vision around flexible, 'lego-like' software and famously rebuilt the product almost from scratch before its 2016 relaunch.
- Simon LastCo-founderSince 2013Long-time technical co-founder who has driven core product and, more recently, Notion's AI features.
- Akshay KothariChief Operating OfficerJoined Notion early and scaled its go-to-market, operations, and team from a tiny startup into a global company.
How do you contact Notion's leadership?
Notion's leadership use the makenotion.com domain (not notion.so), typically in a first-name format. The addresses below follow that format.
ivan@makenotion.comSources:EasyLeadzCrunchbase
How much funding has Notion raised?
Notion has raised roughly $343 million across its priced rounds — about $418 million over all rounds by some trackers — and was valued at around $10 billion in its 2021 financing, a striking figure for a company long known for being capital-efficient and close to profitable.
Its funding history is unusually patient. After a small $2M seed in 2013, Notion grew for years on word of mouth before raising a $10M Series A in April 2019, led by Sequoia Capital at an $800M valuation. A $50M Series B followed in July 2020, with Index Ventures, at a $2B valuation, and in September 2021 a $275M round led by Coatue and Sequoia vaulted Notion to roughly $10B.
Its backers include Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Coatue, alongside well-known angels such as Daniel Gross, Elad Gil, and Lachy Groom. The high valuation relative to the modest capital raised reflects Notion's efficient, community-driven growth rather than heavy spending on sales and marketing.
How did Notion get here?
Notion's path was unusually patient — a near-death rebuild, a long word-of-mouth climb, and only later a jump to a multi-billion-dollar valuation.
- 2013FoundedIvan Zhao and Simon Last start Notion in San Francisco, aiming to make software as malleable as building blocks.
- 2016Notion 1.0 relaunchAfter nearly scrapping the product, the small team rebuilds and relaunches Notion, winning a devoted early following.
- 2019Free personal planNotion makes its personal plan free, igniting bottom-up, word-of-mouth growth.
- 2021$10B valuationA $275M round values Notion at around $10 billion as adoption accelerates among teams and enterprises.
- 2023Notion AI & acquisitionsLaunches Notion AI and acquires the calendar app Cron (now Notion Calendar) and email startup Skiff.
Sources:notion.so
Who are Notion's competitors?
Notion competes with tools across docs, wikis, and project management — a wide field, because its all-in-one nature overlaps with many single-purpose products at once.
- CodaThe closest direct analog: a docs-meets-database hybrid for teams.
- ConfluenceAtlassian's enterprise wiki, strong where Jira is already in use.
- ClickUpProject-management suite that has added docs and wikis.
- ObsidianLocal-first, markdown personal knowledge base for power users.
- Microsoft LoopMicrosoft 365's modular, Notion-like workspace.
Sources:G2 comparisons
Notion — frequently asked questions
