AI-powered notetaking startup Granola is scaling fast—and not just because it takes great meeting notes. The AI Notetaking app, which quietly launched a year ago, has grown organically among VCs and tech founders thanks to its flexible AI that goes far beyond simple transcription. Now, with a fresh $43 million Series B and a $250 million valuation, Granola is expanding its scope from a solo productivity tool into a collaborative workplace assistant.
Granola Evolves from Notetaking to Knowledge Hub
Originally pitched as a smart way to automate meeting notes, Granola has turned into something more. According to co-founder Chris Pedregal, users are now leaving the app open all day—not just for meetings but to take personal notes, organize their thoughts, and let the AI surface useful insights from across their digital workspace.
This shift in use cases has driven steady weekly growth of 10%, Pedregal said, though he didn’t reveal exact user numbers. What’s clear, however, is that Granola is becoming the default digital desk for many in the startup world.
Backing that momentum, Granola’s new $43 million funding round was led by NFDG, the venture firm run by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. Existing investors Lightspeed and Spark Capital also returned, joined by notable angels like Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Amjad Masad (Replit), Tobias Lütke (Shopify), and Karri Saarinen (Linear). This brings Granola’s total capital raised to $67 million.
New Collaborative Features Aim to Bring Teams Onboard
With fresh capital in hand, Granola is turning its attention to teams. The company is rolling out collaborative features that let users share notes and transcripts across their organization. New tools will enable teams to create shared folders—perfect for tracking customer calls, interview loops, or product feedback—and let even non-Granola users chat with the AI to extract insights.
This marks a move toward what other players like Read AI, Otter, and Fireflies have started doing—building shared knowledge spaces from meetings. But Pedregal argues Granola stands apart thanks to its hybrid design: it blends automated transcripts with editable, human-centric notes, allowing users to take control at any moment.
Earlier this month, Granola added the ability to query the AI about all recorded meetings. Now, it’s refining that feature to allow folder-specific queries, making it even easier to extract key information across complex projects or workflows.
Investor Mike Mignano of Lightspeed believes this approach is what gives Granola an edge. “Since the start, the company has had the right mix of AI transcript and human control of taking notes. Now that they are building context across the meetings and making the notes shareable, the product has become stronger,” he said.
As more productivity platforms like Notion roll out their own transcription tools, Granola is betting on depth over breadth. By becoming the go-to workspace for all meeting knowledge—and giving users tools to curate and search across that knowledge—Granola hopes to unlock long-term value, not just faster notes.
