It was 2020. Grant Lee was staring at yet another PowerPoint slide and thinking: there has to be a better way.

Grant had just moved into an advisory role after the startup he was working at was acquired by Amplitude. The new role involved creating countless slide decks — and experiencing the same frustrations we’ve all faced since PowerPoint was created in the 1980s.

So, Grant decided to re-think what was possible. And Gamma was born.

Below is the story of how Grant and his team took Gamma from an idea in a 2-bedroom San Francisco apartment to a beloved platform with nearly 50 million users.

But before we dive in, a big announcement: Grant Lee will be the keynote at Camp Hustle 2025.

His story is fascinating, his vision is big, and his ego is humble. Come hang with Grant in person at Camp Hustle this year.

Ok, now on to the story.

Building the Anti-PowerPoint

Grant always knew he wanted to start a company from the ground up. But he didn’t jump into it the way so many founders do… blindly and with zero experience.

No, Grant was intentional. He learned what it takes to build and scale a company – as a consultant, an investment banker, a finance leader at Optimizely, and a COO at ClearBrain.

So when he had the idea for Gamma, Grant was as prepared as he could be to build his own venture from scratch.

Grant and his co-founders Jon Noronha and James Fox started tinkering nights and weekends on what would become Gamma. Their vision: create a "building block" approach to presentations that would be multimedia-rich, responsive, mobile friendly, and flexible.

By November 2020 – peak pandemic, if you recall – the team had a prototype just good enough to start fundraising.

"We weren't just tweaking PowerPoint. We were rethinking how ideas could be shared in a digital-first world." -Grant Lee, Gamma

Investors immediately recognized the potential.

Remember, we’re in pandemic-mania at this point. Everyone believed the future of work could and would fundamentally change. And Gamma offered something genuinely new. The team quickly raised a $3 million pre-seed round, and then a $4 million seed just nine months later.

Most startups with a cool $7m in the bank might opt to hire a big team very quickly and start racing towards those venture capital outcomes.

But Lee made a different choice: to hire “painfully slowly.” This mindset didn’t detract from their growth. Rather, it allowed them to stay nimble and move fast.

The AI Inflection Point

For about three years, Gamma grew steadily. Users liked the fresh approach to presentations, but the product still felt like a "toy" — fun, but not compelling enough to abandon familiar tools.

Then: the AI revolution of early 2023.

AI aligned perfectly with Gamma’s mission to make content creation fast, easy, and effortless. So the team started integrating AI into every part of the workflow. And when they launched the AI features in 2023, the results were extraordinary.

Signups jumped from hundreds to 10,000 per day. Users could generate entire presentations from a single prompt or transform text into visually stunning layouts with one click.

Zero to 50 Million

What happened next is the stuff of startup dreams.

Without a massive marketing budget or sales team, Gamma's user base exploded to nearly 50 million users. And they did it with a team of just 25 people.

Integrating AI into the workflow proved to be a crucial differentiator. While competitors scrambled to tack AI onto existing products, Gamma’s AI was already seamlessly integrated.

Most impressively, Gamma achieved something rare and precious: profitability. By the end of 2024, the company was cash-flow positive, with ARR in the 10s of millions.

Come see Grant at Camp Hustle

We work very hard to find the most unique, scrappy, innovative speakers possible for Camp Hustle. And Grant hits the mark on every count.

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If you want to hear more of his story, ask him your questions, and meet him in person, join us at Camp Hustle. Happening May 12-14, 2025 in Northern California, Camp Hustle is a must-attend event for VCs, angel investors, and fund managers.

Grant’s fireside chat will kick off the event, with the goal of helping investors spot the next Gamma in their deal flow.

With nearly 50 million users and counting, Gamma's story is far from over. Join us at Camp Hustle to find out what’s next.

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