It took weeks for Cannon to hear back, but when she finally did she began offering her expertise to the team over email. "I am very interested in art in my life and I had not realized that I could combine my love for art and economics, but this was it." That's what they did with Notion," she said. You know, Marcel Duchamp is my favorite artist because he reduces it down to the fundamentals, and questions what art can be. "I wrote them this letter about why the product was so good. Zhao was a no-show the night of the event, but Cannon remained determined, taking inspiration from Duchamp's work. She delivered the invitation to Notion's well-hidden office in the city, complete with a postcard of artwork by Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. She found out Zhao was an artist, so decided to try to convince him to attend a friend's gallery show in San Francisco. She started plotting ways to convince the company to at least meet with her. Still, Cannon added Notion to the top of her whiteboarded list of "global convictions." A colleague at the firm described Notion as her "white whale." The handful of other investors, which included Sequoia Capital and First Round, made it clear that Zhao and his cofounder Akshay Kothari were not interested in taking gobs of funding from the Valley's vast network of venture capitalists. "The first time I saw the product, I was like, 'This is it,'" Cannon told Business Insider.Īs she started reaching out to the startup's handful of seed investors, it became clear that investing - let alone leading a round - was out of the question. She stumbled on Notion casually, but knew right away it was special. The art of the dealĪfter Sarah Cannon joined Index Ventures in 2018, she became a board observer at Slack and started researching other early-stage productivity startups. Here's the backstory of how an Index partner won over the notoriously VC-shy startup. "Our customers want a company that is stable that will stick around for a long time."įor a select group of new investors, the deal brings to a close a years-long chase. "Right now so many companies are doing layoffs," Zhao said on a call Thursday. It's already profitable, he said, and the funding was simply meant to reassure customers and employees that it has enough runway to weather the current economic uncertainty. Notion's 33-year-old cofounder and chief executive, Ivan Zhao, told Business Insider that the company didn't need to raise money. ![]() Notion had previously raised small amounts of funding from many individual investors in what VCs sometimes refer to as "party rounds."įor its latest funding, though, Notion broke tradition and signed on Index Ventures as the lead investor. The startup aims to unseat Google Drive and Microsoft Office with cloud software that helps people, especially remote teams, work more efficiently. Notion's valuation jumped 150% over its latest round. The whole process, from the initial email to the public announcement on Wednesday, took about two weeks, with less than two days passing between when the parties agreed on terms and the deal was signed. Still, not every business is flailing: Productivity startup Notion just closed a new $50 million round of financing at a $2 billion valuation. ![]() Startups are facing the biggest crisis in a generation as the coronavirus wreaks havoc on the global economy. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. ![]()
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