![]() ![]() They have approached and partnered with dozens of accelerators around the globe including Y Combinator, 500 Startups and TechStars to bring their portfolio startups onto Notion’s platform, offering admitted startups $1,000 in free services each. Over half of the startups from Y Combinator’s most recent batch are Notion customers, the company tells TechCrunch, and the startup seems intent to accelerate their adoption among small teams. Notion charges startups $8 per employee (when billed annually) to use the service. Notion has north of 1 million users and has attracted thousands of young startups to its platform, which combines notes, wikis and databases into a versatile tool that can help small teams cut down on the number of enterprise software subscriptions they’re paying for. Notion Labs, a profitable work tools startup that recently hit a reported $800 million valuation, isn’t making it easy for VC firms to give them money, but they are partnering with some of them alongside top accelerators like Y Combinator in an effort to become another household name in work software. The easiest explanation: more money will usually go a longer way with hiring.Startups building work software for other startups have been a huge focus of investment in Silicon Valley as eager VCs hope to grab a piece of the next Slack. Notion has simply tried to be capital efficient and mindful of dilution, and its numbers can justify SoftBank-sized checks without SoftBank-style dilution now. “You can invest more aggressively in product and engineering, in certain kinds of marketing opportunities, than you could otherwise,” says Vernal. “Sometimes as you move up market with enterprise customers, people pay attention to things like how big the company is, how much you’ve raised in funding.” Another factor: proving you’re not going anywhere. The who: In the courtship to lead Notion’s round, as one of Silicon Valley’s buzzier businesses, Coatue got a leg up through a land and expand approach worthy of the software startups it backs. The firm put a small check in Notion’s 2020 raise led by Index Ventures, then went to work. Since David Schneider joined the firm from ServiceNow, where he was once president, Schneider has met with Kothari twice a month, Kothari says, for coaching. Notion chief resource officer Olivia Nottebohm, a Google and Dropbox veteran, met Kothari and Zhao through Coatue, initially to advise as a go-to market expert. Sequoia, meanwhile, knew Notion through its portfolio company Inkling, where Zhao once worked, and whose former CEO Matt MacInnis had written Notion a small Scout check on Sequoia’s behalf early on. Through MacInnis, Notion met Vernal, an executive at Facebook and angel investor who later joined Sequoia in 2016. Vernal’s close colleague at Facebook: Marooney, the social giant’s former longtime head of communications. The two are neighbors Coatue’s also an investor in startup Rippling, where MacInnis now serves as COO. “This was probably the fastest round to come together in my time at Sequoia, definitely top two or three,” Vernal says. The other notable new investor in the round: Base10 Partners, the firm founded by Adeyemi Ajao. Notion’s general counsel, Hasani Caraway, introduced the startup to Base10. The firm’s values - it’s pledged to donate half of the carried interest from its most recent fund to support scholarships at historically black colleges - helped make Notion want to partner with it, according to Kothari. The lesson: Notion’s executives repeatedly brought up the company’s community as a differentiator its investors turned to the same in justifying such a large investment and valuation. Only more recently has the company appeared an overnight success, meaning it’s reached $300 million-plus investment with less dilution than typical.įor other entrepreneurs, Vernal notes that Notion spent three to four years at seed-stage focused on its product. ![]() “If an entrepreneur can build an organic, product-led growth product like this, then they definitely should. It’s hard,” Vernal says.Īnd at Notion, Kothari says his message for employees after reaching a $10 billion valuation has been to quote his former boss at LinkedIn and mentor, Jeff Weiner. ![]()
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