Notion Labs, Inc.
Company History
Notion History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2013 in San Francisco, California, United States
When was Notion founded?
Notion was founded in 2013 in San Francisco, California, United States by Ivan Zhao and Simon Last, making it 13 years old.
- Founded
- 2013
- Founding place
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Founders
- Ivan Zhao and Simon Last
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Milestones documented
- 12 (2013–2026)
- Current CEO
- Ivan Zhao
- Acquisitions
- 3
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2013 | Notion Labs Founded in San Francisco |
| 2015 | Near-Collapse & The Kyoto Rebuild Sprint |
| 2016 | Launch of Notion 1.0 Block-Based Canvas |
| 2018 | Launch of Notion 2.0 with Relational Databases |
| 2019 | Achieved Operating Profitability on $10M Seed Capital |
| 2020 | $50M Investment Led by Index Ventures at $2.0B Valuation |
| 2021 | $275M Series C at $10.0B Valuation Led by Coatue and Sequoia |
| 2022 | Acquisition of Cron & International Expansion to Japan |
| 2023 | Public Launch of Notion AI Q&A Across All Workspaces |
| 2024 | Notion Calendar Launched |
| 2025 | Notion Mail Launched |
| 2026 | Surpasses $500M Annualized Revenue and Launches AI Agents |
- Where was Notion founded?
- Notion was founded in San Francisco, California, United States in 2013.
- Who founded Notion?
- Notion was founded by Ivan Zhao and Simon Last.
- When did Notion start?
- Notion was founded in 2013.
- How old is Notion?
- Notion is 13 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
Ivan Zhao and Simon Last founded Notion in San Francisco in 2013 to build a tool that let non-programmers make their own software. The first version struggled, and by 2015 the company was nearly out of money. The founders cut the team, moved to Kyoto, Japan, and rebuilt the product from scratch. Notion 1.0 launched in 2016, and Notion 2.0, which added databases, launched in 2018 and set off rapid growth.
Founders
Ivan Zhao
Ivan Zhao is co-founder and CEO of Notion Labs. Inspired by computing pioneers such as Douglas Engelbart and Alan Kay, he started Notion in 2013 to let people without programming skills build their own tools. After the first product stalled in 2015 he and Simon Last moved to Kyoto to rebuild it. As CEO he has kept Notion capital-efficient, raising no primary funding since 2021, while steering it to more than $500 million in annualized revenue by 2025 and an $11 billion valuation, and pushing the company toward AI agents. Ivan Zhao was born in 1986.
Simon Last
Simon Last is Notion's co-founder and has been central to the product's engineering since the beginning, including the 2015 Kyoto rebuild that produced the block-based architecture Notion still uses. He keeps a low public profile compared with Zhao and has focused on technical work, including Notion's AI efforts. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Key Milestones
Notion Labs Founded in San Francisco
Ivan Zhao and Simon Last founded Notion in San Francisco, inspired by computing pioneer Douglas Engelbart.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgNear-Collapse & The Kyoto Rebuild Sprint
Facing imminent bankruptcy, Ivan Zhao and Simon Last moved to Kyoto, Japan, rebuilding Notion from scratch.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLaunch of Notion 1.0 Block-Based Canvas
Released Notion 1.0 publicly, introducing the modular block-based document and wiki interface to wide acclaim.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLaunch of Notion 2.0 with Relational Databases
Unveiled Notion 2.0, introducing multi-view databases (Kanban, calendar, table), igniting rapid viral growth.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAchieved Operating Profitability on $10M Seed Capital
Reached operational profitability with under 20 employees and $10M in total funding, a rarity in SaaS.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$50M Investment Led by Index Ventures at $2.0B Valuation
Raised $50 million led by Index Ventures, achieving unicorn status as global remote work adoption surged.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$275M Series C at $10.0B Valuation Led by Coatue and Sequoia
Raised $275 million led by Coatue and Sequoia at a $10 billion valuation; also acquired Automate.io.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of Cron & International Expansion to Japan
Acquired calendar app Cron and opened an official Tokyo office to serve its devoted Japanese community.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPublic Launch of Notion AI Q&A Across All Workspaces
Debuted Notion AI Q&A, allowing users to query enterprise knowledge bases using conversational AI.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgNotion Calendar Launched
Notion launched Notion Calendar in January 2024, built on the Cron app it had bought in 2022.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgNotion Mail Launched
Notion launched Notion Mail, an email client, in April 2025.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgSurpasses $500M Annualized Revenue and Launches AI Agents
Notion told CNBC in September 2025 that annualized revenue had passed $500 million as it launched Notion AI agents.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgMajor Acquisitions
Cron
2022Acquired the next-generation calendar app created by Raphael Schaad to unite scheduling with workspace notes.
Automate.io
2021Acquired the integration and workflow automation platform to enable native multi-app data syncing.
Skiff
2024Acquired the end-to-end encrypted collaborative workspace and email platform.
Keep researching Notion
Notion Company History FAQ
What are the historic milestones in Notion's evolution from a struggling startup to a $10B tech leader?
Key milestones include: founding in San Francisco (2013), near-bankruptcy and move to Kyoto (2015), launch of Notion 1.0 on Product Hunt (2016), release of Notion 2.0 with relational databases (2018), reaching profitability (2018), $2B valuation Series B (2020), acquisition of Automate.io (2021), $10B valuation Series C (2021), acquisition of Cron (2022), launch of Notion AI (2023), launch of Notion Calendar (2024), and surpassing 100 million registered users (2024).
How did the launch of Notion AI in early 2023 transform workplace knowledge retrieval?
In February 2023, Notion launched Notion AI globally, becoming one of the first major consumer/enterprise productivity platforms to integrate generative LLMs natively into text editors, allowing users to brainstorm, summarize, edit tone, and query workspace wikis using natural language.
What was the significance of Notion reaching 100 million global users in 2024?
In 2024, Notion celebrated crossing 100 million registered users worldwide, cementing its position alongside Slack, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365 as an indispensable global workplace standard for modern companies, students, and digital creators.
How did Notion expand into physical community conferences with 'Make with Notion'?
In September 2024, Notion hosted its inaugural global user conference, 'Make with Notion', in San Francisco, unveiling major platform upgrades (Notion Forms, Notion Layouts, Marketplace updates, and customizable email integrations) to thousands of international attendees.
How did Notion navigate viral growth on TikTok and social media in 2020-2021?
During 2020, aesthetic Notion workspace setups, study dashboards, and daily routine planners went viral on TikTok and YouTube (#Notion gaining billions of views), driving a surge of Gen Z students and young professionals into the Notion ecosystem.
When did Notion launch its public API and how did it foster enterprise integrations?
In May 2021, Notion released its public Beta API, enabling developers to build bi-directional workflows with Zapier, Typeform, GitHub, and Slack, which rapidly grew into a thriving enterprise developer ecosystem with thousands of public integrations.
How has Notion expanded its global enterprise sales organization?
Between 2021 and 2024, Notion established dedicated enterprise sales and customer success teams in San Francisco, New York, London, Dublin, Tokyo, and Sydney; CNBC reports more than half of Fortune 500 companies use Notion.
What is Notion's long-term vision for the next decade of collaborative computing?
Notion envisions building the ubiquitous, AI-augmented canvas for human thought, a unified medium where every individual and enterprise can smoothly organize knowledge, automate complex workflows, and craft custom software tools without boundaries.
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