Notion doubles down on India in fight against Google, Microsoft
What's the story
Notion, the productivity software company, is eyeing India as its next big growth market.
The company's co-founder, Akshay Kothari, made this observation during an interview with Moneycontrol at the San Francisco headquarters.
He said that "India is a very fast-growing market in terms of usage," adding that they are "very bullish on the market."
Notion is positioning itself to compete with tech giants like Microsoft and Google in the global workplace software space.
Adoption surge
Notion sees adoption among Indian businesses
Kothari also noted that Notion is witnessing a surge in adoption among businesses in India, especially start-up unicorns.
However, he did not share any specific data on usage numbers in India. Globally, the $10 billion start-up crossed 100 million users in September 2024 from one million in 2020.
To further boost adoption in India, Kothari said they are focused on making their product faster and more efficient for local internet connections like 3G and 4G.
Payment integration
Need to support local payment methods like UPI
Kothari also stressed the need to support local payment methods such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI). He said, "People are just so used to UPI and other things here."
The co-founder acknowledged that monetization in a market like India would take time. He said, "Part of it is probably like we grew up never paying for software. But it's changing and people are starting to pay."
Investment boost
Expanding R&D center in Hyderabad
Notion is also investing heavily in expanding its research and development (R&D) center in Hyderabad.
Kothari said, "India is our only R&D center outside the United States."
The company had acquired Hyderabad-based integration start-up Automate.io in September 2021 for an undisclosed amount.
This acquisition allowed Notion to open an engineering office in the city, which now employs around 60-70 people.
Profile
Notion is a comprehensive AI-powered workspace
Notion was founded in 2013 by Ivan Zhao and Simon Last as a simple note-taking app.
It has since evolved into a comprehensive AI-powered workspace offering notes, databases, enterprise search, wikis, project management, calendars, email, and more.
Akshay Kothari, an early investor, joined as COO in 2018 when the company had just eight employees and later became a co-founder.
Although the app launched in 2016, growth accelerated in 2018 with Notion 2.0's improved design and features.