Notion Capital, one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture investors in business software and fintech, has today announced the final close of its new €300 million fund Notion Capital V SCSp (“Notion V” or “the fund”), which closed at its ‘hard cap’. The successful fundraising progress is testament to Notion’s strategy, past performance and strong base of supporters, as well as the resilience of the European tech sector in the face of macroeconomic headwinds.
As well as its strong operational heritage and deep subject matter expertise in business software, the firm prides itself on its value-added model, with an extensive Platform team supporting its portfolio companies in areas such as product, go-to-market strategy, talent and pricing. This not only helps existing portfolio companies fulfil their potential, but also provides a compelling differentiator to access the best new opportunities in the market. This complements the firm’s digital sourcing and productivity capabilities using advanced AI to identify, track and prioritise its investment pipeline.
Stephen Chandler, Managing Partner at Notion Capital, said: “Our team has built a strong brand and reputation, and the demand for Notion Capital V, in a challenging market, is testament to this. Fund V is large enough to provide meaningful funding to its portfolio companies but crucially, small enough to continue to drive the true outsized venture capital returns we seek for our investors. It’s a great point in the cycle to be investing and the European technology ecosystem has proven to be resilient, innovative and highly productive.
The fund’s first close was held last year and it has already made several investments including Bound, DataOps, M3ter and Resistant AI. Notion expects to make around 20 core Series A+ investments in total from the fund. Unlike predecessors, Notion V is Euro denominated and Luxembourg-based reflecting the firm’s increasingly pan European focus.
Notion also announced three senior promotions with Itxaso del Palacio moving to General Partner and Stephanie Opdam and Kamil Mieczakowski to Partner. A Spanish-Basque national, Itxaso joined Notion in 2018 from M12 (Microsoft Ventures) where she was an Investment Partner. She is a Kauffman Fellow and an Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship at UCL, with a PhD in Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital and a Masters in Engineering. Since joining Notion, she has led investments in Bound, Cledara, Cobee and Yulife amongst others. Stephanie and Kamil, Dutch and Polish nationals respectively, also joined the firm in 2018 and have played pivotal roles in strategy and leadership as well as sourcing and winning high potential companies. They have proven themselves thoughtful investors and great overall contributors with Steph leading Notion V’s recent investment in DataOps and Kam leading the Resistant AI transaction.
“I am particularly delighted to announce these well-earned promotions, continuing our track record at Notion of promoting Partners from within the firm. We are a diverse team spanning 10 European nationalities which gives us extraordinary reach and access across the market,” added Chandler.
Notion V continues the firm’s successful strategy of investing in Europe’s best emerging business software and fintech companies. The fund follows the same strategy as its predecessors, where performance has been extremely strong across all metrics.
Investors in the new fund comprised sovereign wealth funds, endowments, fund of funds, pension funds, family offices and high net worth individuals from across Europe, MENA and the United States, as well as numerous founders from Notion portfolio companies. New names included: Cortes Capital LLC, KfW Capital, Shelby County Tennessee Retirement System and TNO Pension Funds. Returning LPs included: British Patient Capital, Novo Holdings and RSJ.
Ryan Tidwell, CIO at Cortes Capital LLC said: “From our very first meeting, we were impressed with what the Notion team has built. They have deep expertise and insight in European software and a very differentiated proposition for founders. As such we felt they would be a strong addition to our wider portfolio, giving us additional exposure to early stage opportunities in Europe and focused insight into the business software market there.’’
Notion expects to be back in market with its third Opportunities Fund in 2024. This is a complementary strategy investing additional growth follow-on capital into the firm’s best performing venture assets and selected other growth-stage business software companies in Europe. It will also target parties looking for secondary liquidity in their positions where Notion’s sector knowledge and value added model should make it an attractive candidate.
