Granola, the AI-driven notetaking startup, has been gaining significant momentum since its launch a year ago. Its rapid growth has largely been fueled by word of mouth among venture capitalists and startup founders. However, the app’s rising popularity stems from users applying it beyond its core function, automated meeting transcription, to more personal and versatile notetaking.
Chris Pedregal, Granola’s co-founder, shared with TechCrunch that many users now rely on the app for personal note management, allowing the AI to analyze and surface insights from both professional and personal data. “People keep Granola open all day because they have numerous meetings; it’s becoming the place where they live digitally,” Pedregal explained.
What’s Next for Granola?
With the $43 million funding and new collaboration tools, Granola is well-positioned to accelerate growth and innovation. Future updates may include deeper integrations with popular productivity platforms, improved AI-driven insights, and expanded enterprise features.
As remote and hybrid work continues to dominate, tools like Granola that enhance asynchronous collaboration and knowledge sharing will likely become essential for businesses looking to maintain efficiency and competitive advantage.
The $43 Million Series B Funding and $250 Million Valuation
The recent funding round, led by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross’s venture firm NFDG, marks a significant vote of confidence in Granola’s vision and product. Participation from established investors like Lightspeed and Spark, alongside influential angel investors such as Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Amjad Masad (Replit), Tobias Lütke (Shopify), and Karri Saarinen (Linear), highlights the strong support from both venture and industry leaders.
This $43 million injection brings Granola’s total funding raised to $67 million, providing the startup with ample resources to accelerate product development, expand its user base, and enhance its AI capabilities.
This organic traction and broadening use cases have propelled Granola’s user base to grow by about 10% each week since launch, although the company has not disclosed exact user numbers.
Riding this wave of growth, Granola announced on Wednesday the successful close of a $43 million Series B funding round led by NFDG, the venture firm co-founded by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. The investment values the company at $250 million.
Existing investors Lightspeed and Spark also participated, alongside prominent angel investors such as Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Amjad Masad (Replit), Tobias Lütke (Shopify), and Karri Saarinen (Linear). This latest round brings Granola’s total funding to $67 million.
Collaborative Features to Boost Team Productivity
With this fresh capital, Granola is expanding beyond its initial focus on individual users to cater more to teams and businesses. The company has launched new collaborative features that allow users to share transcripts and notes seamlessly with teammates. This enables the app’s AI to aggregate insights from a larger pool of data, leading to more intelligent, context-aware recommendations and summaries.
Organizations can now create custom folders tailored to different workflows, such as sales calls, customer feedback, hiring interviews, and project meetings. This segmentation helps teams organize their knowledge efficiently and promotes more transparent communication.
One standout feature is the ability to share meeting notes with people outside the Granola ecosystem. Non-users can interact with the AI, ask questions about the shared notes, and get relevant insights without needing to download the app themselves, an innovative move that lowers barriers to collaboration.
Alongside the funding announcement, Granola revealed new collaborative features designed to expand its appeal from individual users to business teams. The app now allows users to share meeting transcripts and notes with colleagues, enabling the AI to analyze a wider pool of data for richer insights.
Within organizations, users can create custom folders tailored to different collaborative workflows, such as sales calls, customer feedback sessions, and hiring processes. Meeting notes can also be shared with non-Granola users, who can interact with the app’s AI and ask questions based on shared content.
While competitors like Read AI, Fireflies, and Otter offer similar shared-space capabilities, Pedregal emphasizes Granola’s distinct approach. “Granola is much more than just a meeting notetaker. It’s deeply personal, and users maintain full control. They can edit notes anytime. It’s a workspace for ongoing collaboration, not just a tool for capturing meetings,” he said.
How Granola Differentiates Itself from Competitors
While other AI transcription and notetaking apps like Read AI, Fireflies, and Otter also offer collaborative spaces, Granola emphasizes a more personal, user-controlled approach. According to Pedregal, the app is not just about capturing meetings but also about creating a living workspace that users can continuously edit and engage with.
This combination of AI automation and human control is central to Granola’s philosophy. Users can revise notes anytime, organize information dynamically, and ask the AI follow-up questions to deepen their understanding. Earlier this month, Granola enhanced its AI to allow users to query all their recorded meetings, and now it supports querying specific folders, further personalizing the experience.
Earlier this month, Granola updated its AI to allow users to ask questions about all recorded meetings. Building on this, the company will now enable AI queries on specific collaborative folders.
The Broader Trend: AI-Powered Collaboration and Knowledge Management
Granola’s evolution reflects a broader shift in the productivity app market. AI-powered meeting transcription tools are increasingly becoming integrated knowledge hubs, connecting data across multiple sources and providing actionable insights. This trend is driven by the growing demand for more innovative work tools that reduce administrative burden and enhance decision-making.
At the same time, major productivity suites like Notion are introducing built-in transcription and AI notetaking features, intensifying competition and pushing innovation across the sector.
This shift toward collaborative AI-driven workflows mirrors a broader trend among meeting transcription apps, which are increasingly integrating with other tools to serve as centralized knowledge hubs.
Meanwhile, productivity platforms are incorporating transcription tools to reduce reliance on third-party apps. For example, Notion recently launched its own AI meeting notetaking feature.
Mike Mignano of Lightspeed sees Granola’s competitive advantage in its intuitive interface and user experience. “From day one, Granola has struck the right balance between AI-powered transcription and user control of notes. With the addition of contextual linking across meetings and enhanced sharing features, the product has become even stronger. These capabilities lay the foundation for long-term value and network effects for both individual users and teams,” he said.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Granola AI Notetaking App?
Granola is an AI-powered notetaking tool designed to automatically transcribe meetings and help users organize and analyze notes. It combines automated transcription with AI-driven insights to enhance productivity for individuals and teams.
How much funding has Granola raised recently?
Granola recently raised $43 million in a Series B funding round, which values the company at $250 million.
Who led Granola’s latest funding round?
The Series B round was led by NFDG, a venture firm co-founded by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, with participation from existing investors like Lightspeed and Spark, as well as angel investors including Guillermo Rauch, Amjad Masad, Tobias Lütke, and Karri Saarinen.
What new features has Granola launched?
Granola has introduced new collaborative features that allow users to share meeting transcripts and notes with teammates, create custom folders for team workflows, and enable non-users to interact with the app’s AI through shared content.
How does Granola’s collaboration feature work?
Users in an organization can share notes and transcripts within customizable folders for use cases like sales, customer feedback, or hiring. People who don’t have Granola can still access shared notes and interact with the AI assistant to ask questions.
How is Granola different from other AI notetaking apps?
Unlike many competitors, Granola emphasizes personal control over notes, allowing users to edit and manage their notes continuously. It serves as a workspace beyond just meeting transcription, supporting ongoing collaboration and insight generation.
Conclusion
Granola’s impressive funding milestone and launch of collaborative features underscore the growing importance of AI in transforming how people capture, organize, and leverage information. By blending powerful AI capabilities with a user-centric approach, Granola is setting a new standard in the notetaking and productivity space.
For individuals and teams seeking an intelligent workspace that adapts to their needs, Granola offers a compelling solution that goes beyond simple transcription to become a dynamic partner in work and learning.