Is Otter AI Owned by Zoom? No. Who Owns Otter.ai, and How It Works With Zoom (2026)

No, Otter AI is not owned by Zoom: Otter.ai, Inc. is a private company in Mountain View, California, founded in 2016 as AISense by Sam Liang and Yun Fu and backed by venture investors such as Spectrum Equity, Horizons Ventures and Draper Associates. Zoom is a long-time partner, not a parent, and if what you want is notes from your Zoom meetings without a bot in the call, Scribbl Desktop, our AI note taker for Zoom, does that on a free plan: Get Scribbl Desktop.

The confusion has real roots. Zoom picked Otter's technology for its meeting transcripts in 2017, the two launched features together for years, and Otter's own press releases say it is "backed by early investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom, and Tesla," which is easy to misread. Below: who owns Otter, where the Zoom link comes from, how Otter works with Zoom today, and how to get Zoom notes with nothing joining the call. Every fact is from Otter's and Zoom's own pages and from TechCrunch, VentureBeat, SiliconANGLE and No Jitter, checked on October 23, 2026.

Who owns Otter.ai?

Otter.ai is owned by its founders, employees and outside investors. It's a private company, so the share each one holds isn't public.

Sources: Otter's vendor details, its October 20, 2026 announcement and its December 22, 2025 announcement; founders from VentureBeat (February 25, 2021).

Otter's funding, round by round

After the Series B, VentureBeat put Otter's total funding at over $63 million. The October 2026 money doesn't change who owns Otter: TechCrunch says the Customer Value Fund "provides capital to startups without diluting equity," and SiliconANGLE says General Catalyst takes no equity stake and gets a share of the revenue the money helps bring in.

Sources: TechCrunch (January 27, 2020); Otter and VentureBeat (February 25, 2021); TechCrunch and SiliconANGLE (October 20, 2026).

Why people think Zoom owns Otter

Three things, all true, add up to a wrong answer.

1. Zoom chose Otter's technology for its transcripts. In an October 11, 2018 announcement, Otter said that at Zoomtopia 2017, Zoom had selected Otter's technology to be the only engine for automated transcription of meetings recorded on Zoom. Otter added that Zoom was the first meeting platform to connect directly with it, and that Zoom's phone service, Zoom Voice, used Otter for voicemail transcription. Zoom's founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, was quoted praising the accuracy of Otter's speech recognition.

2. They launched features together for years. Otter Voice Notes went into the Zoom App Marketplace in 2018. In April 2020, Otter launched Live Video Meeting Notes for Zoom, a live transcript people could highlight and comment on during the call, which No Jitter described as part of a "longstanding partnership." It needed paid plans on both sides.

3. One sentence in Otter's press releases. Otter's announcements end with "backed by early investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom, and Tesla." That describes Otter's investors: firms that backed those companies early. It doesn't say Zoom invested in Otter. Its 2021 Series B release used a different list, "the first investors at Google, Tesla, DeepMind, and Facebook," with no Zoom at all. Some AI answers repeat the first sentence as "Zoom is an investor in Otter," and no funding announcement we found supports that.

Sources: Otter, October 11, 2018; No Jitter, April 22, 2020; Otter, December 22, 2025; Spectrum Equity, February 2021.

Today they also compete. Zoom has its own AI features, now called Zoom AI (formerly AI Companion), which write meeting summaries and notes inside Zoom. See Zoom AI Companion for what they do and cost.

How Otter works with Zoom today

Otter is a third-party app. Zoom's App Marketplace terms separate apps Zoom makes from apps "developed and published by third party publishers not affiliated with Zoom," and Otter's Zoom app, made by Otter.ai, is one of those. Otter's help center lists four ways to use it with Zoom:

Sources: Otter help center, Record a Zoom meeting (updated October 21, 2026), Set up Otter Notetaker to join your Zoom meeting and Set up Otter Zoom Sync (both October 23, 2026); Zoom App Marketplace Terms of Use.

For how Otter works on Teams and Google Meet too, see does Otter work with Teams, Zoom and Google Meet.

How to remove Otter from a Zoom meeting

• Anyone in the meeting: type stop otter in the Zoom meeting chat. Otter says every Otter Notetaker in the meeting leaves right away, and you don't need an Otter account.
• The host or a co-host: remove the Notetaker from the participant list, like any participant.
• The Otter user, for future meetings: in Otter, go to Integrations › Meetings › Default auto-join settings and choose Meetings I manually select, or disconnect the calendar. Events switched on one by one keep their own setting, so check those too.

Sources: Otter help center, Remove Otter Notetaker from your meeting and Stop Otter Notetaker from automatically joining your meetings, checked October 23, 2026.

Zoom notes with nothing joining the call: Scribbl

If you looked up who owns Otter because you're deciding what to use on Zoom, the bigger question is what sits in your meetings. Otter's recommended way puts a bot in the participant list and asks the host to change Zoom settings. Scribbl Desktop records Zoom from your own computer instead, so nothing joins the call, you don't need to be the host, and it works on any Zoom plan.

1. 1

   Add Scribbl Desktop

   Install it on your Mac (Apple silicon) or Windows computer.

2. 2

   Join the Zoom meeting as usual

   Scribbl shows Capturing, like in the image at the top. Nothing joins the call. Tell everyone at the start that you're recording.

3. 3

   Open the notes when it ends

   The video recording, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items are on one page in your Scribbl account.

Feature	Scribbl	Otter
Anything in the Zoom participant list	No	Otter Notetaker, the way Otter recommends
Host changes Zoom settings first	No	Yes, Record to computer files, for meetings you host
Video recording of the meeting	Every meeting, every plan	Video replay is listed under Enterprise
Transcript on the free plan	The whole meeting, with speaker names	First 30 minutes of each conversation

What else comes with Scribbl:

• Meetings sorted by themselves. Smart Collections put each new Zoom, Google Meet or Teams meeting into the groups you describe.
• The follow-up done. Automations draft the follow-up email (copy it or open it in Gmail; it never sends by itself), post to Slack or Microsoft Teams, or log a note in HubSpot or Pipedrive. They ask before they change anything by default.
• Ask about past meetings. On Pro, connect Scribbl to ChatGPT or Claude and ask what was decided in any meeting.
• Private by default. Recordings are private by default, and Scribbl doesn't use your meetings to train AI for anyone other than you.

The free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with 10 meetings a month. Pro is $13 per user per month billed annually, or $20 monthly (pricing). Get Scribbl Desktop. Weighing other tools first? See Otter alternatives.

FAQ

Is Otter AI owned by Zoom?

No. Otter.ai, Inc. is a private company in Mountain View, California, founded in 2016 as AISense by Sam Liang and Yun Fu. Its investors include Spectrum Equity, Horizons Ventures, Draper Associates and NTT Docomo Ventures, and no funding announcement names Zoom. Zoom and Otter are partners: Otter's tools work with Zoom meetings, and Zoom chose Otter's technology for its meeting transcripts back in 2017.

Who owns Otter.ai?

Otter.ai is privately held by its founders, employees and venture investors; it has no parent company. Its co-founder Sam Liang is the CEO. Spectrum Equity led its $50 million Series B in February 2021, with Horizons Ventures, Draper Associates, GGV and Draper Dragon Fund. In October 2026 it took $320 million from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund, which reports describe as capital that doesn't take equity.

Is Zoom an investor in Otter.ai?

Not according to any funding announcement we found. Otter's press releases say it is backed by early investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom and Tesla, which describes Otter's investors, the firms that backed those companies early, not those companies themselves. The investors named in Otter's rounds are Spectrum Equity, Horizons Ventures, Draper Associates, GGV, Draper Dragon Fund, NTT Docomo Ventures and General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund.

Does Zoom use Otter for transcription?

It did. Otter said in October 2018 that Zoom had chosen Otter's technology at Zoomtopia 2017 to power automated transcription of recorded Zoom meetings. Neither company's current pages say whether Zoom's transcripts still come from Otter. Zoom now has its own AI features, called Zoom AI.

Is Otter a Zoom app?

Otter is a third-party app in the Zoom App Marketplace, made by Otter.ai, not by Zoom. Its Notetaker joins Zoom meetings as a participant, and its Zoom Cloud Sync, which a Zoom admin approves in the Marketplace, transcribes Zoom cloud recordings on Otter's Business plan.

How do I remove Otter from a Zoom meeting?

Type stop otter in the Zoom meeting chat; Otter says any participant can do it and every Otter Notetaker leaves at once. The host or a co-host can also remove it from the participant list. To keep it out of future meetings, the Otter user sets auto-join to Meetings I manually select.

Is there a Zoom note taker that doesn't join the call?

Yes. Scribbl Desktop for Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows records Zoom meetings from your own computer with nothing joining the call, whether or not you're the host, and gives you the video, a transcript with speaker names, AI notes and action items. The free plan includes Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, with 10 meetings a month. Get it at scribbl.co/desktop.

Sources

Checked on October 23, 2026.

• Otter: vendor and remittance details (legal name, Delaware, April 2016, Mountain View address); General Catalyst backs Otter.ai with $320M growth investment (October 20, 2026); Otter.ai caps 2025 with $100M ARR milestone (December 22, 2025); Otter.ai raises $50 million Series B led by Spectrum Equity (February 25, 2021); Otter.ai brings new AI capabilities to Zoom customers at Zoomtopia (October 11, 2018)
• Otter help center: Record a Zoom meeting, Set up Otter Notetaker to join your Zoom meeting, Set up Otter Zoom Sync, Remove Otter Notetaker from your meeting, Stop Otter Notetaker from automatically joining your meetings; pricing (30 minutes per conversation on Basic, video replay on Enterprise)
• Zoom: App Marketplace Terms of Use (last updated August 2022)
• News: TechCrunch, Otter raises $10M including from NTT Docomo (January 27, 2020); VentureBeat, Otter.ai raises $50 million (February 25, 2021); Spectrum Equity, Otter.ai raises $50M (February 2021); No Jitter, Otter.ai launches live video meeting feature for Zoom (April 22, 2020); TechCrunch, Otter AI raises $320M from General Catalyst's growth fund (October 20, 2026); SiliconANGLE, Otter.ai raises $320M (October 20, 2026)
• Scribbl: pricing, Scribbl Desktop, AI note taker for Zoom