So, Grammarly just announced it acquired Coda—yes, that digital doc-collaboration platform that’s like if Google Docs married Notion and raised a spreadsheet-loving offspring. If you haven’t heard of this acquisition yet, that’s probably because Grammarly’s marketing machine hasn’t invaded your inbox (don’t worry, give it time, it will).
As someone who’s been using Grammarly since way back in 2012, and as someone currently building a productivity platform called carboncopies.ai, I’m both impressed and intrigued by this move. If you’ve followed Grammarly at all, you know they’ve come a long way from being a witty red-underline tool nagging you about your Oxford commas. Today, Grammarly claims a $13 billion valuation and boasts some impressive stats. According to getlatka.com, they’re pulling in about $251.8 million in annual revenue and guiding over 30 million daily web users to write better.
Meanwhile, there’s Coda. If you’re not familiar, Coda is the productivity stack for the hip and hyper-organized. It merges documents, spreadsheets, and apps into one all-in-one platform—think a minimalist lifestyle guru who also moonlights in Python scripting. According to getlatka.com, Coda’s estimated 2024 revenue is around $41.1 million—hardly pocket change.
In a world where Grammarly is eager to justify its jaw-dropping valuation and push back against the ChatGPTs and Claudes nibbling at its lunch, acquiring a productivity platform might be the next logical step.
In 2012, Grammarly was just a neat browser extension highlighting my clumsy typos and occasionally praising a clever turn of phrase. As a recent graduate working in San Francisco, a multilingual user juggling Indonesian, Mandarin Chinese, Singaporean (British) English, and then American English, my emails often resembled linguistic casseroles nobody wanted to taste. Grammarly, like a patient language coach, caught awkward phrasing and half-translated phrases "long time no see" - from hao jiu bu jian, helping me speak clearly to an international audience—one green underline at a time.
Fast-forward to 2024, and Grammarly is a corporate titan. Per getlatka.com, their $251.8 million in revenue and 30 million daily users are impressive by any measure. With a $13 billion valuation and $400 million raised over three funding rounds, they’ve become much more than a glorified spellchecker.
On the flip side, Coda raised around $140 million and built a platform that merges the logic of spreadsheets, the flexibility of documents, and the interactivity of apps—all in one place. While not a $13 billion behemoth, Coda has made enough noise to stand out in a crowded productivity tool space.
What makes Coda special? Imagine a workflow where you don’t just read text—you interact with real-time data, task boards, automations, and even test AI personas for product development, all within a single doc. It can feel like the ultimate all-in-one collaboration platform, or a brilliant way to confuse your interns. Either way, it’s a potent environment for teams who love tinkering.
If you’d paid attention during Grammarly’s 2023 conference—where they unveiled their “expanded vision to power the AI-connected enterprise”—you might have seen this coming. They talked about bridging team communication gaps, enhancing productivity, and leveling up every stage of content creation and decision-making. It was ambitious then, and now it’s practically a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Back then, many thought Grammarly might partner with hot AI document-parsing companies like Glean, known for knowledge management. Instead, Grammarly took a direct route: buy a company that makes docs dance, a power move in a world seeking the next Slack, Notion, or Google Docs killer.
While Coda is a solid choice, I wonder why not go for a specialized AI document-parsing startup like Glean?
Glean in numbers: $39 million in January 2024, $2.2B in valuation. Of the company’s 200+ enterprise customers as of September 2024, notable names include Duolingo, Amplitude, Instacart, Databricks, Plaid, and Vanta. (Source: contrary.com)
With Glean’s ability to understand and index organizational knowledge, Grammarly could have helped teams not just write better, but navigate their knowledge bases with ease. Think of the synergy if Grammarly had said: “We’re acquiring Glean to parse, understand, and rewrite all your documents perfectly.” That’s understanding, navigating, and perfecting—an unbeatable trifecta.
Maybe this is the long game: acquire Coda now, become essential to daily workflows, and later add a doc-parsing AI company. If the corporate world were a fantasy epic, Grammarly is forging rings of productivity power in some secret Silicon Valley volcano.
Now that Grammarly is stepping into doc-editing territory, what can we expect? Will they teach your cat to write error-free blog posts? Perhaps Grammarly will integrate even deeper AI-driven features to reorganize content into digestible structures. With Coda’s flexible docs, they can insert themselves earlier in the creation process. Imagine opening a fresh Coda doc and having Grammarly suggest a structure, reference your team’s previous work, and remind you that your boss prefers Oxford commas.
The big question: will this truly help teams or just produce more corporate “synergy” memos? Likely both. On one hand, integrated docs plus top-tier writing assistance can streamline workflows. On the other, we might get a deluge of polished but empty corporate-speak. Still, if clarity and coherence improve, maybe a few extra buzzwords are worth it.
In some ways, this acquisition feels like a logical step for a company that started out helping individuals write better. Grammarly mastered the singular user, and now it wants the plural—teams, organizations, entire enterprises. With Coda onboard, they can influence not just words, but how we plan projects and move ideas to execution.
Let’s raise a glass—of artisanal kombucha, naturally—to Grammarly and Coda. May their union create a digital ecosystem where even a grocery list looks Pulitzer-worthy. May we never have to choose between clarity and collaboration. May every noun and verb live in harmony on a platform that never judges us (too harshly) for using “impact” as a verb.
CarbonCopies