Otter.ai hits $100 million revenue, 40 million users

Sam Liang's path to Otter.ai began with a practical problem: as a student from China, he recorded lectures on a Sony Walkman to keep up with his professors. That experience inspired the AI notetaker he co-founded in 2016. Early investors were skeptical—Liang recalls many thought the idea was crazy—but the company spent two years building the technology under the name AISense before launching a free version of Otter in February 2018, followed three months later by a paid tier. The pandemic then moved meetings onto Zoom, and Otter's revenue grew 800% from 2019 to 2020. By the time it raised $50 million in Series B funding in February 2021, it had transcribed more than 100 million meetings. Now, with $100 million in annual revenue and $320 million in new financing, Otter.ai is integrating with major AI platforms including OpenAI, Claude, and Google.