Notion’s Next Thing Is an Alternative to Gmail and Google Drive

Notion may be coming soon alternative to Gmail and Google Drive after purchasing Skiffa startup that, in addition to some of the services the San Francisco-based company already offered, such as a calendar or document manager, has an email client and a platform for storing files in the cloud.

These are exactly two of the services that Notion doesn’t have yet, as the management software has been allowing users to use calendar as an alternative to Google Calendar since early 2024, after the company acquired Cron in June 2022.

Now, and although Notion has not yet confirmed anything in this regard, it is very likely that after the purchase of Skiff the startup run your own email client with end-to-end encryption which competes with Gmail as well as cloud file storage manager it is an alternative to Google Drive. Both services will likely integrate with Notion, much like the calendar platform does.

There are no details about how much Notion Skiff was purchased for, although the company confirmed in a blog post that the startup team that began creating an alternative to Google Docs. will be part of the Notion team.

This is Skiff, the startup that acquired Notion.

Skiff was founded in 2020 by Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg, who managed to collect up to $14.2 million in two rounds of financing, TechCrunch reports. Investors include companies such as Sequoia Capital, as well as John Hennessy, the current president of Alphabet, and Jerry Yang, a former director of Yahoo.

The services offered by Skiff are distinguished by their simplicity and, above all, confidentiality. because all its platforms are end-to-end encrypted. In fact, Notion has always kept a close eye on Skiff, as confirmed by Akshay Kothari, the company’s chief operating officer.

“Skiff started showing up on our radar at Notion early on. I actually tried to contact you in 2020 when you were creating your Docs product. We never communicated then, but I followed your progress. Then, a few months ago, Ivan and I were talking and Skiff came over again. “I downloaded all the products you created and was very impressed with the attention to detail,” he says.

Interestingly, Akshay also realized that Skiff’s headquarters were located in the same place where Notion’s offices were originally located.