Notion’s APAC gamble shows tech’s new power centers

The Japanese general manager’s boast about a CNBC ranking reveals how Silicon Valley’s old dominance is fragmenting, with Asia-Pacific now driving both customers and competition.

The Tokyo boast that tells a story

Katsu Nishi, Notion’s general manager for Asia-Pacific, posted something on X last Sunday that most executives would keep private. He said he was “happy” that Notion had landed at number 10 on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list. The reason he gave was telling: “It’s a signal of how customers and the market evaluate us.” He added that Notion ranked above “several AI-native companies born in recent years.” That’s a quiet dig. But the real news is where he sits. Nishi works out of Tokyo, not San Francisco. Notion’s APAC headquarters opened in 2023. The company now has over 200 employees in the region. The old assumption — that American tech companies conquer Asia from California — is dying.

The numbers behind the shift

The figures are stark. In 2020, Asia-Pacific accounted for roughly 28 percent of global venture capital investment, according to data from KPMG. By 2025, that share had climbed to 41 percent. China still dominates, but India, Japan, and Southeast Asia are growing faster. Japan’s startup funding hit $8.4 billion in 2025, up from $3.9 billion in 2020. India’s deep-tech sector raised $12.2 billion last year. The US share of global VC, meanwhile, fell from 52 percent to 44 percent over the same period.

Notion’s own numbers reflect this. The company says its APAC user base grew 70 percent year-on-year in 2025. Japan alone accounts for 1.2 million paid seats. That’s not trivial for a productivity software company that started as a niche tool for Silicon Valley engineers.

Why Tokyo matters more than ever

I spent a week in Tokyo last November talking to tech executives and diplomats. The mood was different from five years ago. Then, everyone worried about China’s dominance. Now, the concern is more granular. Japan’s government has poured $65 billion into semiconductor subsidies since 2021. TSMC opened a fab in Kumamoto. Rapidus, a domestic chip venture, is building a facility in Hokkaido with IBM’s help.

But the shift isn’t just hardware. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son has bet $100 billion on AI infrastructure, much of it in Japan and India. The country’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry now runs a “Digital Garden City Nation” initiative that funnels money into regional tech hubs. It sounds bureaucratic — it is — but it’s working. Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Osaka are all seeing startup clusters.

I met a young founder in Shibuya who runs an AI compliance platform for banks. He said his biggest problem wasn’t funding or regulation. It was hiring English-speaking engineers. That’s a first-world problem, but it’s a sign of maturity.

The geopolitical squeeze

None of this happens in a vacuum. The US-China tech war has fundamentally reshaped supply chains. American companies can’t sell advanced chips to China. Chinese companies can’t buy American software without licenses. The result is a bifurcated market where APAC becomes the battleground.

Nishi’s post is relevant here. Notion is an American company, but its APAC operations are increasingly autonomous. The product is localized for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese users. The pricing is adapted to local markets. The compliance teams deal with Japan’s Personal Information Protection Commission, India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and Australia’s Privacy Act separately.

This is the new normal. American tech firms that treat APAC as a single “region” will fail. The regulatory fragmentation is too deep. Japan requires data localization for healthcare. India demands it for payments. Vietnam is writing its own rules. South Korea has its own AI ethics framework.

The China question that won’t go away

You can’t talk about APAC without talking about China. It’s the elephant in every boardroom. Chinese AI companies like Baidu, Alibaba, and ByteDance are building their own ecosystems. DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup, released a model in early 2026 that beat OpenAI’s GPT-5 on several benchmarks. The cost? $5.6 million to train, versus an estimated $100 million for GPT-5.

That’s a problem for American incumbents. Notion competes with Chinese tools like Feishu (ByteDance’s enterprise platform) and DingTalk (Alibaba’s messaging app). These products are cheaper, more integrated with local services, and favored by Chinese regulators.

But the bigger issue is trust. American companies face growing skepticism in Beijing. The Chinese government has banned 1,200 foreign apps since 2021, including many from the US. Notion is still available in China, but its market share is tiny. The real growth is in markets that are neutral or pro-American: Japan, India, Australia, Singapore.

The hollowing out of Silicon Valley’s mystique

The old story was that Silicon Valley produced magic and the rest of the world bought it. That’s no longer true. APAC now produces its own magic. India’s Zoho is a global CRM player. Japan’s Mercari built a billion-dollar marketplace. Australia’s Canva is worth $40 billion.

Nishi’s post is a small signal of a large trend. He’s not apologizing for being in Tokyo. He’s bragging about it. The CNBC ranking matters because it shows that a company built in San Francisco — but run from Tokyo — can still dominate.

The question is whether that model holds. If the US-China conflict deepens, companies will have to choose sides. If India imposes data tariffs, margins shrink. If Japan’s aging population slows growth, the talent pool dries up.

For now, though, the smart money is on APAC. Notion’s GM knows it. That’s why he’s happy.