Notion Capital embarks on fourth fund, exceeding half a billion dollars in assets

Notion Capital has announced Fund IV, with the first close expected at over $150 million. The firm’s assets under management now exceed $500 million, and it is already planning to raise a second growth opportunities fund next year.

The European B2B SaaS investor, which has been in the game for ten years, boasts such portfolio darlings as Tradeshift, CurrencyCloud, Paddle, GoCardless, and Unbabel. The team attributes the firm’s success to a mixture of human and machine advantages.

As the only post-seed European VC started by B2B founders, Notion characterizes its operational approach as “entrepreneurial empathy.” Complementing the founders’ first-hand experience is Notion’s proprietary machine learning tools, which process public data sources and provide information that assists current portfolio companies or indicates promising investments.

Historically the firm has invested exclusively at the Series A level of B2B SaaS companies that are headquartered in Europe. After ten years, the company is reevaluating some facets of its category ⁠— all but the European part. The SaaS market has evolved and extended far beyond the business software that kickstarted the model. Though such apps are still a large and viable segment, Notion is now also looking toward industry disruptors (e.g. fintech or agritech; solutions that extend beyond SaaS to payments or marketplace services) and frontier tech (e.g. cybersecurity; boundary-pushing tech that often requires investment before commercialisation). In fact, Notion expects Fund IV to be the first accredited National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), “investing in advanced technologies that contribute to the UK Government’s national security mission and that of its allies.”

As for “Series A,” the firm defines its focus as companies at or close to product-market fit, with over €1 million ARR. The first cheque sizes range from €1-8 million. That said the firm is open to investing later ⁠— in companies who have scaled further through bootstrapping or large seed funding ⁠— or even earlier, with certain pre-revenue frontier tech businesses. Another development a new VC fellowship programme, Included, which Notion launched this past May. The goal is to increase the number of underrepresented communities within the VC industry and the diversity of deal flow.

Included has received over 1,500 applications for just 30 places, and the 12 month fellowship starts this month. The program, though initiated by Notion Capital, is now supported and funded by a wide group of European VCs and other sponsors.