Linear
A fully remote maker of product development software for software teams, past $100M of recurring revenue, cashflow positive, and valued at $2.5B in an August 2026 staff share sale.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026; Linear careers page- Valuation
- $2.5B in an August 2026 employee tender, double the $1.25B Series C price of June 2025.
- Raised
- $134.2M across four rounds from 2019 to 2025; part of the Series C was secondary, not new cash.
- Revenue
- $100M+ ARR passed earlier in 2026, with more than 40,000 paying companies.
- Watch
- Cash above funding Linear says it is cashflow positive with more cash than it has ever raised.
- AI
- Agents in 95% of paid workspaces Linear says agents now create half of the work in Linear, up from 3% a year earlier.
- Liquidity
- Two staff tenders $1.25B in 2025 and $2.5B in 2026 ($99M), open to current and former staff.
- Hiring
- 29 → 27 remote listings since Oct 10.
Per-seat subscriptions, with agent features on top.
Linear sells subscriptions to its issue tracking and product planning tool. Its Linear Agent and Skills come with all plans; Automations and Code Intelligence are on Business and Enterprise. Linear says high-volume agent features may become usage-based above a threshold once out of beta. It does not publish a revenue split.
Linear changelog, Mar 24, 2026- 1Customers spend more every yearLinear reports net revenue retention of 177% and more than 40,000 paying companies, with Salesforce and Figma added in 2026.Linear, Aug 26, 2026
- 2The tool of AI labs and coding startupsLinear names OpenAI, Cursor, Cognition, Harvey, Physical Intelligence, Legora and Baseten as running product development in Linear.Linear, Aug 26, 2026
- 3A place where coding agents take workSince May 2025 agents can be assigned issues like teammates. Devin, Codegen and Cursor plug in, and an MCP server serves Claude, Codex, Cursor and others.Linear changelog, May 20, 2025; Linear MCP docs
- Atlassian$48.3Blisted, Oct 30 close
- Notion$11.0Bprivate, Jan 26
- ClickUp$4.00Bprivate, Oct 27
- Linear$2.50BEmployee tender, Aug 26
Private values are the last reported round; they can be stale. Listed values are market value. Bars start at zero.
Every round, and what its terms give away.
Linear is private, so there is no share price. What its investors paid, and on what terms, is the closest thing to one.
- $2.50B
- latest valuation, Employee tender Aug 26
- $134M
- raised in all
- $100M
- ARR, as of Aug 26
- 80
- employees, as reported
Cashflow positive; profitable since 2021 per Linear. No profit figure published.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026; TechCrunch, Jun 2025 (about 80 staff, total raised)Post-money valuations as reported. The line starts at zero. Rounds without a reported valuation are left off.
- Aug 26Employee tender$99M at $2.50BLed by Accel and 01A, with new investors Salesforce Ventures and S32Secondary sale: the $99M went to current and former staff, not to Linear.Linear, Aug 26, 2026
- Jun 10Series C$82M at $1.25BLed by Accel. About 7% of the company, if all new sharesMixed primary and secondary; split not disclosed. Sequoia and 01A returned; Seven Seven Six and Designer Fund joined. A staff tender ran at the same price.Linear, Jun 10, 2025; TechCrunch, Jun 10, 2025
- Sep 14Series B$35MLed by Accel (Miles Clements)Sequoia and 01Advisors joined. Linear said it had been profitable since 2021, with about 50 staff. Valuation not stated by Linear.Linear, Sep 14, 2023
- Dec 8Series A$13MLed by Sequoia CapitalTotal raised reached $17.2M. Sequoia's Stephanie Zhan joined the board.Linear, Dec 8, 2020
- Nov 21Seed$4.2MLed by Sequoia CapitalIndex Ventures and angels including Dylan Field joined.Linear, Nov 21, 2019
- Down round or flat round?No. The August 2026 tender priced Linear at $2.5B, double the $1.25B Series C.Linear, Aug 26, 2026Clear
- How much of the company the last round soldAbout 6.6%: $82M at $1.25B. Part of it was secondary (existing shares), so less than that was new stock.Linear, Jun 10, 2025Clear
- Time since the last raiseAbout 17 months since the June 2025 Series C. Linear says it is cashflow positive and chose not to raise new money in 2026.Linear, Aug 26, 2026Clear
- Structured or unusual termsNone reported. We found no SEC Form D for Linear Orbit to check terms.Linear, Jun 10, 2025; SEC EDGAR search, Nov 3, 2026Open
- Who led the last roundAccel, which also led the Series B. New outside investors joined the Series C and the 2026 tender.TechCrunch, Jun 10, 2025; Linear, Aug 26, 2026Clear
- Tender offers or secondary sales for staffYes, twice: at $1.25B in 2025 and at $2.5B in Aug 2026 ($99M), for current and former staff.Linear, Aug 26, 2026Clear
- Layoffs in the last 12 monthsNone found in Linear's posts or press. Linear had 30+ open roles in August 2026.Linear, Aug 26, 2026; searched Nov 3, 2026Clear
Clear: checked, nothing found. Flag: found, with the source. Open: could not be checked.
No filing reported
- Aug 26, at $2.50B. $99M for current and former staff; Accel, 01A, Salesforce Ventures and S32 bought.
- Aug 27, at $1.25B. Alongside the Series C, at the investors' price; size not disclosed.
What the record says, and what we think it means.
The fact is the source's. The read, in italics, is ours.
- 01Good
Cash in the bank exceeds all funding.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026Linear says it is cashflow positive and holds more cash than everything it has raised. It said in 2023 it had operated profitably since 2021.
Unusual for a venture-backed startup. Less pressure to raise, cut or sell in a hurry.
- 02Good
Staff sold $99M of shares at $2.5B.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026In August 2026 current and former employees sold part of their vested equity at a $2.5B valuation. Salesforce Ventures and S32 were new buyers.
Staff equity has had a real price twice in two years. That is rare liquidity for a private company.
- 03Good
Retention of 177%.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026Linear reports net revenue retention of 177% and 40,000+ paying companies; ARR passed $100M in 2026.
Existing customers are adding seats fast. The figure is company-stated and not audited.
- 04Watch
A bug showed private team data inside workspaces.
Linear post-mortem, Apr 6, 2026On Mar 24, 2026 a code change let members, including guests, see private teams' data in their own workspace for about an hour. Linear says nothing left any workspace and it found no sign of abuse.
Handled openly with a detailed post-mortem. A permissions bug in a tool holding roadmaps is the kind of thing big buyers ask about.
- 05Neutral
The CEO says issue tracking is dead.
Linear, Mar 24, 2026In March 2026 Karri Saarinen wrote that issue tracking is dead and recast Linear as a shared product system for humans and agents, launching Linear Agent.
A bet to stay ahead of AI coding tools. It also admits the original product category may shrink.
- 06Neutral
Fully remote, across many regions.
Linear careers and about pages, checked Nov 3, 2026Linear says its team is distributed across North America and Europe; its careers page lists roles in Europe, North America, London, Singapore, Australia and APAC, and says the freedom to work remotely allows more meaningful work.
Remote is the policy, not a perk. Some support roles name required US time zones.
- 07Neutral
A small team on purpose.
TechCrunch, Jun 10, 2025; Linear, Sep 14, 2023Linear had about 50 staff in 2023 and about 80 in June 2025. Its careers page says it builds better with fewer people.
Each hire carries a lot of scope. Expect high expectations and few layers of management.
- 08Watch
Up against Atlassian's Jira.
TechCrunch, Jun 10, 2025TechCrunch describes Linear as an Atlassian rival competing with many of its products.
Atlassian is far larger and bundles Jira with other tools. Linear wins on design and AI startups; large enterprises are the test.
- 09Neutral
Early investors hold board seats.
Linear, Dec 8, 2020; TechCrunch, Jun 10, 2025Sequoia's Stephanie Zhan, who led the seed and Series A, joined the board in 2020. Accel led both the Series B and Series C.
A stable, long-term investor base. No new board seats were reported for 2025 or 2026.
Product is paid 17% over market.
We save every company's roles, pay by team and level, AI share and churn every day, so each month this page can say more. Sparklines use their own scale.
Can AI agents do business with Linear?
We checked the agent payment programs, developer docs and site rules an AI assistant would meet.
Built for agents. Agent API, hosted MCP server, its own agent, and an llms.txt on the main site.
Still Remote read- YesAn MCP server agents can callHosted at mcp.linear.app with OAuth or API keys, plus a read-only endpoint. Docs list Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed and v0.Linear MCP docs, checked Nov 3, 2026
- YesAgents can work as teammatesSince May 20, 2025 agents can be assigned issues and @mentioned. Partners at launch included Devin, ChatPRD and Codegen; developers can build their own.Linear changelog, May 20, 2025
- YesIts own AI agentLinear Agent launched in public beta on Mar 24, 2026, with Skills and Automations. Code Intelligence was announced as coming soon.Linear changelog, Mar 24, 2026
- YesAgents already doing the workLinear says agents are installed in 95% of paid workspaces and create 50% of work, up from 3% a year earlier.Linear, Aug 26, 2026
- YesSite and docs AI tools can readlinear.app/llms.txt indexes about 175 site, docs and API pages, and says any page can be fetched as Markdown by adding .md. Pages also carry a line telling AI agents to connect to its MCP server.checked Nov 3, 2026
- YesLets AI crawlers read its siterobots.txt names no AI bots. It blocks only /api/ and /cdn-cgi/ for all crawlers (allowing /api/og/).checked Nov 3, 2026
Where Linear puts AI to work.
- 1Slow to ship AI, then all inSaarinen said early generative AI tests were not precise or repeatable enough, so Linear held back. It then built triage and duplicate detection, and agent workflows.Runtime, May 15, 2025
- 2Few people, more agentsLinear grew from about 50 staff in 2023 to about 80 in 2025 while passing $100M ARR. Its careers page says it builds better with fewer people.Linear careers page; TechCrunch, Jun 2025; Linear, Aug 2026
As many listings as on Sep 7, led by product.
What has to be true for $2.5 billion to hold?
The starting revenue is Linear's own reported figure. A way to think, not a forecast, and not investment advice.
At 25x, Linear needs $100 million of revenue to be worth $2.5 billion. Your world gets there with $196 million, so the next round likely prices above the last.
$100,000 of equity valued at the $2.50B Employee tender price would be worth about $196,000 on paper in this world, before dilution from new rounds, taxes and vesting. Private shares only turn into cash at a sale, an IPO or a tender offer.
A way to think, not a forecast, and not investment advice.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026; Linear, Aug 27, 2025The signals, and which way they push.
- TailwindAgent work is exploding inside Linear.
Agents create 50% of work in Linear, up from 3% a year earlier, and issues with linked pull requests grew sevenfold in 2026.
- TailwindAI companies are the customer base.
OpenAI, Cursor, Cognition and Harvey run product work in Linear; Salesforce and Figma signed in 2026.
- TailwindNo need to raise.
Cashflow positive with cash above all funding raised, so the company can pick its timing on any IPO or round.
- HeadwindAgents may make tickets less needed.
Linear's own CEO calls issue tracking dead. If coding agents plan their own work, a tracker could matter less.
- HeadwindPricing for agent features is unsettled.
Linear says Automations and Code Intelligence may move to usage-based pricing after beta.
Where Linear ends up, if we had to bet.
Our calls, not facts. Each one is tied to something that already happened, so you can judge the reasoning.
- 1
Linear lists on a public exchange by 2031.
Long shot 16%IPOIt is cashflow positive with more cash than it raised, and staff already get liquidity through tenders. That removes the usual pressure to list.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026 - 2
Linear is bought by a larger software company by 2031.
Long shot 16%M&AProfitable founders with a tender at $2.5B have little reason to sell. A buyer would need to pay well above that.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026 - 3
Linear passes $500M of ARR by 2031.
Coin flip 50%RevenueIt passed $100M in 2026 with 177% net retention. Keeping that pace as it moves into large enterprises is hard.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026 - 4
Most new issues in Linear are created by agents, not people.
Likely 72%AIAgents already create half of the work, and nearly 25% of new issues by March 2026. Linear is building its product around that shift.
Linear, Mar 24, 2026; Linear, Aug 26, 2026 - 5
Linear is the default product tool for new software companies in 2031.
Coin flip 50%CompetitionIt leads with AI startups and labs today. Atlassian is far bigger, and AI coding tools may build their own planning.
Linear, Aug 26, 2026; TechCrunch, Jun 10, 2025
Read by the Still Remote research agent on November 4, 2026 from the sources linked on this page. Facts and scenarios only, not investment advice.