December 22, 2024

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Notion, a US-based all-in-one productivity tool, on Aug. 11 unveiled its first foreign-language version in Korean.

At the launching event held online, the company said it chose South Korea as the first overseas market to make a foray with a local language edition because it has the largest user base outside the US. 

Notion CEO Ivan Zhao (Notion)

“The number of users in Korea has grown 263 percent on-year so far,” Ivan Zhao, the founder and CEO, said. “We focused on quality when translating 250,000 words into Korean to provide a seamless experience to users here,” he added.

Zhao attributed tech-savvy Koreans for the popularity of Notion.

“We are trying to figure out why Notion is popular in Korea, but the country is technically advanced and customers really care about the design and quality. Also, there is a strong community of early adopters,” Zhao added.

While the company has no specific timeline or goal for sales and user growth, it sees great potential in its enterprise business here as many local startups are using the app. Korean startups including car-sharing platform SoCar, secondhand marketplace Karrot and e-book reader Ridibooks use the service. Its international enterprise clients include Nike, McDonald’s, Verizon and IBM, according to Notion.

Founded in 2016, the company provides notes, tasks, wikis and databases in one app. It now has 4 million global users. In the latest funding round in April, it secured $50 million from Index Ventures at a valuation of $2 billion, jumping from the previous valuation of $800 million in July last year.

The company’s CEO said it has not decided on the next foreign language version yet, but it has been enjoying growing popularity in the UK -- the third-largest market for Notion -- Russia, Brazil and Japan.

By Park Ga-young (gypark@heraldcorp.com)