What Roam Research does

Roam Research is a privately held software company headquartered in San Francisco that builds a note-taking platform organized around networked thought. Its core product is a graph database-backed editor that replaces hierarchical folder structures with bidirectional linking between blocks of text, allowing users to build an interconnected web of notes over time. The platform supports daily notes with automatic date-based organization, unlimited public and private graphs, real-time collaboration, and a public API for extensibility, and is distributed natively across macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and a Chrome browser extension.

Roam generates revenue exclusively through consumer/prosumer subscriptions with no disclosed enterprise sales motion. Pricing is split between a Pro plan at $15 per month or $180 per year and a Believer long-term commitment plan at $500 for five years (~$8.33/month equivalent), both gated by a 31-day free trial. The company serves individual knowledge workers, researchers, students, and academics, with notable individual users at DeepMind, OpenAI, Facebook, Dropbox, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, and UC Berkeley; no institutional enterprise contracts are documented.

The company was funded by a single $9 million round in September 2020 led by investors including Lux Capital, True Ventures, Spearhead, Bossa Invest, and Village Global, and operates with an 11–50 person team under founder and CEO Conor White-Sullivan alongside co-founder Joshua Brown and COO Mike Norman. Its go-to-market is purely product-led and community-driven, relying on an active Slack community, content marketing, and organic word-of-mouth rather than direct sales.

Name

Roam Research

Legal name

Roam Research

Website

https://roamresearch.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Roam Research is a privately held, graph database-backed note-taking platform built for networked thought and bidirectional linking, serving individual knowledge workers, researchers, and academics through a self-serve Pro and Believer subscription model.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Pro Subscription: Monthly or annual subscription providing unlimited private/public Roam graphs, unlimited collaborators, and API access. Priced at $15/month or $180/year ($165 early-bird rate)
2. Believer Subscription: Premium 5-year commitment plan at $500 (effectively $8.33/month) including all Pro features plus first access to new features, community calls with the team, and priority support

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Roam Research is a subscription-based note-taking application that lets users write, link, and query notes through a graph database architecture with bidirectional links. The platform is delivered as desktop apps (macOS, Windows, Linux), mobile apps (iOS, Android), and a Chrome browser extension, and is sold via self-serve Pro and Believer subscription plans.

Product overview

Roam Research is a single, unified note-taking platform built around networked thought and bidirectional linking. The core product is the Roam Research application itself, which is available across multiple platforms including web, desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux), and mobile (iOS, Android). The company offers two subscription tiers: Roam Pro ($15/month) and Roam Believer ($500/5 years), with the Pro plan including API access for developers. Additional offerings include the Roam Reader for Chrome browser extension. The platform differentiates itself through graph database-like interconnected notes rather than hierarchical organization.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Roam Research A note-taking platform that combines the ease of a document editor with the power of a graph database, using bidirectional linking to let knowledge workers, researchers, writers, and academics organize and connect ideas across long-running projects.
• Roam Reader for Chrome A Chrome browser extension that allows users to read and interact with Roam content directly from the browser, extending the platform's accessibility beyond the native desktop and mobile applications.

Quantifiable outcome

• Users report writing 3x more daily content after adopting Roam
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Notion: All-in-one workspace combining docs, wikis, and databases with bidirectional linking. Closest direct competitor to Roam in the networked-note and knowledge-management category, with a far larger user base and enterprise motion.
• Obsidian: Local-first Markdown knowledge base built on a graph view with bidirectional links. Directly comparable to Roam's networked-thought value proposition and benefits from a free personal tier that pressures Roam's $15/month pricing.
• Logseq: Open-source, outliner-based knowledge graph that uses daily notes and bidirectional linking. Targets the same Roam user persona of researchers and writers, but with an open-source model that competes on price.
• Mem: AI-powered self-organizing workspace with light graph-like features. Competes for the same knowledge-worker persona as Roam and overlaps on networked-note positioning, with stronger AI-native feature marketing.
• Workflowy: Outliner-based note and list tool with infinite nesting and tagging. Mentioned in Roam user testimonials as a prior tool; comparable on the writing-and-organization axis for individual knowledge workers.
• Bear: Markdown notes app for Apple platforms with nested tags that approximate graph linking. Cited by Roam users as a prior note system and competes for the same writers/researchers persona on macOS/iOS.

Emerging players

• Tana: Outliner and networked-thought tool with supertags and structured knowledge primitives. Targets a similar researcher/user-base overlap with Roam but is earlier-stage and focused on structured-data capture.
• Anytype: Local-first, encrypted knowledge management and note-taking app with object-based linking. Comparable to Roam on privacy, networked structure, and the local-first thesis, positioning it as an emerging free alternative.

Broad incumbents

• Evernote: Long-established note-taking and clipping app with broad consumer and team adoption. Comparable as a general-purpose notes product, though lacks Roam's graph-database architecture and networked-thought positioning.
• Microsoft OneNote: Microsoft's notebook-style note app bundled with the Office ecosystem. Comparable as a general-purpose notes competitor but distributed primarily through enterprise channels rather than Roam's PLG motion.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/RoamResearch
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/roam-research

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors6 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Roam Research