Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Key takeaways

• Notion's last priced round was a $275 million Series C at a $10 billion valuation in October 2021, now more than four years stale.
• Secondary units trade near $26.21 as of early June 2026, down about 37% over twelve months and down 28% year to date, with supply exceeding demand.
• A December 2025 employee share sale reportedly cleared near an $11 billion valuation, so the secondary is trading roughly in line with the most recent tender.
• Notion crossed $600 million in annual recurring revenue by late 2025, with about half coming from AI products, and it has been described as profitable since 2023.
• That works out to roughly 17x ARR, cheaper than most AI-adjacent names, but the soft demand and aging headline number tell you why.

Here is a number that should make you stop: Notion's per-unit secondary price has nearly halved over the past year, falling from about $42 last summer to roughly $26 now, even as the company's revenue roughly doubled. The headline valuation, meanwhile, has not budged from $10 billion since 2021. That gap between a flat headline and a falling unit price is the whole story, and it is the kind of disconnect that rewards people who actually do the math.

Notion is not your typical pre-IPO hype trade. It is profitable, capital-efficient, and growing fast on the back of AI. It is also a name where sellers currently outnumber buyers, which is unusual for a company this good. Let's work through what you are really getting.

What the Numbers Actually Say

Entry price versus the last round. This is where Notion gets tricky, because there are two reference points. The last priced primary round was the $10 billion Series C in October 2021. That number is more than 1,600 days old, which in startup time is a geological era. The more relevant marker is the December 2025 employee share sale, which reportedly cleared near an $11 billion valuation. So the company's worth, by the only recent transaction available, has crept up only slightly in four years despite revenue going from a fraction of today's figure to $600 million.

The per-unit secondary price tells a harsher version. Notice's consensus has Notion units sliding from $41.89 in the second quarter of 2025 to $24.50 by the first quarter of 2026, now sitting around $26.21. The headline valuation is flat to slightly up, but the per-unit secondary has re-rated down hard. Some of that reflects share count and structure rather than pure sentiment, but the direction is unambiguous, and it lines up with the demand picture below.

Revenue multiple, trailing. At roughly $600 million in ARR against a $10 to $11 billion valuation, Notion trades at about 17x. Notice lists a coverage ratio of 15.8x in the same neighborhood. For a profitable software company compounding quickly, that is not an outrageous number. Set against how multiples actually drive returns, it is meaningfully cheaper than the 25x-to-30x you see on hotter AI secondaries.

Revenue multiple, forward. If ARR keeps growing at the pace implied by the move from $500 million in September 2025 to $600 million by December, you are looking at a forward multiple in the low teens within a year. That is the bull case in one sentence: a profitable, growing company at a public-software-style multiple, available privately.

Peer comparison. Hold Notion's ~17x next to Databricks, which trades closer to 29x run-rate on the secondary with demand outstripping supply 3.3 to 1. The contrast is the lesson. Databricks is the market's darling, priced at a premium with a share shortage. Notion is arguably the better-run business on a profitability basis, trading cheaper, but with soft demand and a stale headline valuation that has spooked some holders into selling. Cheaper is not automatically better. Sometimes the market is telling you something, and sometimes it is mispricing a good company. Your job is to figure out which.

Revenue trajectory. The trend is strong. Roughly $30 million run rate in 2020, $250 million by 2023, $500 million by September 2025, and $600 million by year end, with about half of that ARR now coming from AI features. On total funding of only $633 million, that is a remarkably capital-efficient outcome.

Profitability and margins. This is Notion's standout trait. It has been described as profitable since at least 2023, when it did around $250 million in revenue. Profitability at this scale is rare among pre-IPO names, and it changes the risk calculus. A company that does not need to raise is a company that cannot be forced into a bad down round. That is real downside protection, and it is the single most important fact in Notion's favor.

The Demand Story, In Reverse

Notice reports that investor demand is currently below the supply of available shares. That is the opposite of the usual pre-IPO setup, and it is why the per-unit price has drifted down. When sellers outnumber buyers, price falls regardless of the underlying business quality.

This is the same lens our very own Hustle Fund GP, Elizabeth Yin, applies to valuation generally. As she puts it, valuations come down to supply and demand: the supply of a tranche of stock against the demand from investors. Right now, Notion's supply-demand balance is soft, which is exactly why you can buy in below where the company was arguably worth a year ago. For a value-minded buyer, soft demand is the opportunity. For everyone else, it is a warning that liquidity could be slow and that the next markup may take a while. Both readings are defensible.

The Moat Question

The bear case on Notion is straightforward: it competes in a crowded productivity space, and AI-native tools are coming for the same workflows. Elizabeth's test for any company in a fast-moving market is whether it is genuinely "10x different and 10x better" than the alternatives. Notion's answer is its flexibility and the fact that half its revenue already comes from AI features layered onto an existing, sticky workspace. The company is not getting disrupted by AI in this telling. It is monetizing it.

The counterpoint is that flexibility can also mean no single killer wedge, and that a wave of focused AI tools could chip at specific use cases. This is the live debate, and it is why the secondary is soft. If you believe the workspace is durable, the current price is a gift. If you think AI commoditizes the category, the discount is justified.

How You Would Actually Buy It (And Why That Matters)

Notion's transfer rules are not publicly clear, which in practice means your access runs through indirect vehicles rather than direct share ownership. The two common structures are special purpose vehicles and forward purchase contracts, and our SPV strategy guide walks through how they pool capital into a single position. Two risks matter most, and they matter more in a soft-demand name where you may need to hold a while.

Risk one: forward purchase contracts are synthetic exposure. A forward is not a share. It is a contract in which a current holder promises to deliver shares or their value to you later, usually at a liquidity event. You are not on the cap table. You hold a promise. If the seller defaults, or Notion blocks the eventual transfer, or the seller's own structure unravels, you become an unsecured creditor of a counterparty rather than an owner of the business. In a name where the exit could be years out, that counterparty risk compounds over a long hold. Know precisely who is on the other side and what happens if they cannot deliver.

Risk two: second and third-layer SPVs stack fees and hide your cost basis. Often the vehicle you are offered is not the one holding the stock. It is an SPV that bought into another SPV that holds a forward referencing the shares. Each layer adds a management fee and carry, and each layer makes your true entry price murkier. On a roughly 17x name where part of the appeal is the relatively reasonable price, two or three layers of fees can quietly turn a fair entry into an expensive one. Ask how many layers separate your check from the actual shares and what each one charges. Apply the same discipline you would to convertible note terms on an early-stage deal, because the fee drag here is just as real and twice as easy to miss.

What Has to Go Right, and What Has to Go Wrong

For the bull case: AI revenue keeps compounding, profitability gives the company staying power, demand recovers, and Notion lists or sells at a multiple that makes today's 17x look like a steal. For a profitable business growing this fast, that is a credible path, and the eventual public window is what you are ultimately underwriting.

For the bear case: the productivity category gets commoditized by AI-native entrants, growth slows, the headline valuation stays stuck for another few years, and soft secondary demand means you cannot get out at a price you like. The fee drag from a layered structure does the rest. Also credible, and it is exactly what the falling unit price is pricing in.

The thing to sit with: Notion is the rare pre-IPO name where the business quality and the market's enthusiasm point in different directions. That can be a value setup or a value trap, and the difference comes down to your read on the AI-disruption question and your tolerance for a long, illiquid hold. For more on why late-stage entry price matters more than ownership percentage, our look at the late-stage venture playbook is worth the read.

The Bottom Line

Notion is a genuinely good, profitable, fast-growing company trading at a reasonable multiple, with the unusual twist that the secondary market currently does not want it as much as the fundamentals might suggest. That makes it interesting precisely because it is unfashionable. The risk is that the market's caution proves right and you are early to a thesis that takes years to play out through an illiquid, fee-heavy structure.

This is the kind of nuanced call where a serious community earns its keep, because spotting the difference between a value buy and a value trap, and structuring the entry so fees do not eat the discount, is hard to do alone. That is a big part of why Angel Squad exists. It is a community of more than 2,500 investors across 50-plus countries who have collectively put over $30 million into 70-plus startups, operating under a strict no-a-holes policy with access to the top 1% of deal flow. Hustle Fund is an early-stage fund, but Squad members see the full spectrum, from pre-seed through pre-IPO names like Notion, with the context to actually pressure-test a deal before committing. Learn more at hustlefund.vc/squad.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Notion's current valuation? Notion's last priced round set a $10 billion valuation in October 2021. A December 2025 employee share sale reportedly cleared near $11 billion, which is the most recent meaningful marker. The headline number has barely moved in over four years.

What is the Notion secondary share price? Secondary units trade near $26.21 as of early June 2026, down about 37% over twelve months. That figure is an algorithmic consensus from secondary activity and reference data rather than a guaranteed execution price.

How much revenue does Notion generate? Notion crossed roughly $600 million in annual recurring revenue by late 2025, up from about $500 million in September 2025, with around half coming from its AI products.

Is Notion profitable? Yes, by public reporting Notion has been profitable since at least 2023, when it generated around $250 million in revenue. Profitability at this scale is rare among pre-IPO companies and gives it staying power.

Why is Notion's secondary price falling if revenue is growing? Supply of available shares currently exceeds demand, which pushes the per-unit price down regardless of the business. A four-year-old headline valuation and questions about AI competition have made some holders sellers.

Can I buy Notion stock directly? Notion's transfer rules are not publicly clear, so access generally runs through indirect vehicles such as special purpose vehicles or forward purchase contracts, each carrying fees and counterparty considerations to underwrite carefully.