13. Notion: Rewritten

Ivan Zhao (CEO), Simon Last, and Akshay Kothari founded the company in 2012, which is headquartered in San Francisco. The company has received $330 million in funding and is valued at $10 billion. The company's key technologies include artificial intelligence, cloud computing, generative AI, and low code/no code software. The company operates in the enterprise technology industry and has previously appeared on the Disruptor 50 List at No. 32 in 2023.

Notion is a productivity and management tool that has gained a lot of popularity among users.

Notion is a versatile platform that enables users to take notes, create and share documents, make to-do lists, manage projects, build wikis, and collaborate. Its unique selling point is a minimalist interface that is easy to customize and integrate with numerous applications such as Google Drive, Trello, Jira, Slack, Zapier, and Asana. Notion has gained popularity among millennials and Gen Z, resulting in a highly engaged app community with over 20 million users worldwide. Its flexibility makes it suitable for individuals, small businesses, and large teams at Fortune 500 companies.

Notion has recently integrated AI into its platform, including Notion AI, an AI-powered assistant that can generate summaries, polish writing, create to-dos based on meeting notes, and more. In May, Notion introduced a new AI-powered version of Notion Projects, a project management system integrated with AI, allowing users to plan, manage, and execute a project in one place. In November, Notion released Q&A, a supercharged AI-assisted search function that sifts through a user's documents, projects, notes, and more to answer questions.

Notion, a company valued at over $10 billion with over 600 employees worldwide, has a centralized ownership structure and few investors. Forbes estimates that Notion's founder, Ivan Zhao, still holds at least 30% equity ownership. Zhao was previously anti-VC but changed his mind during the pandemic and raised $330 million in funding from Coatue Management, Sequoia, and Base10. Notion does not have a board of directors.

Notion faces competition not only from other startups but also from tech giants such as Google and Microsoft, whose work suite and collaboration app, respectively, have been compared to Notion.

Despite ongoing layoffs in the tech industry, Notion has grown its team by more than 30% and appointed several senior staff members. The company has hired Erica Anderson, formerly CRO at GitHub, as its new chief revenue officer, and Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, the creator of Google Sheets, as its chief technology officer. Additionally, Notion has appointed its first chief marketing officer, Rachel Hepworth, one of its early marketing hires.