Ivan Zhao co-founded Notion in San Francisco in 2013. The company raised about $2 million in seed money and went through financial trouble in early development.
Notion 1.0 launched in August 2016. In March 2018 the team released Notion 2.0 with fewer than 10 employees. Users built their own documents, databases and wikis from the same blocks, and the product spread by word of mouth.
Notion passed 1 million users in September 2019 and raised $50 million at a $2 billion valuation in January 2020. In October 2021 it raised $275 million at $10 billion and reported 20 million users.
Notion AI arrived in February 2023 and Notion 3.0 with AI agents in September 2025. An employee tender in January 2026 valued the company at $11 billion. In June 2026 Notion said it would shut down Notion Mail on 22 September 2026.