Today we are announcing some very exciting news for Notion…

A final close of Notion Capital III LP, our third early-stage venture fund, at $140m (£107m) – together with a first close of a new $80m (£60m) Opportunities Fund for additional follow-on capital into our best and brightest portfolio companies at growth equity stage. Together these more than double our resources to support exceptional enterprise software entrepreneurs and cement our position as the leading (and largest) dedicated B2B SaaS fund in Europe.

Equally exciting is the news of two internal promotions to the partnership. From the start, we set out to build a genuinely differentiated venture capital firm that would be sustainable across multiple generations. Talent is obviously critical to that mission so it is particularly pleasing to recognise the contributions of Chrys Chrysanthou and Patrick Norris with these internal promotions. All our partners have first-hand experience of what it takes to found, build and exit a technology business. We know how hard it is and have a deep-seated respect and empathy for our founders as a consequence.

We set up Notion in 2009 in the midst of the worst financial crisis in a generation at a time when the venture asset class remained unproven in Europe; indeed our US friends seemed largely dismissive of it. We did this on the back of a very successful exit of our own with MessageLabs, which reinforced our view on the opportunity. The Cloud, which sits at the very heart of our investment thesis, means that great entrepreneurs (of which there are many in Europe!) can develop, deploy, sell and support their product globally in ways that were simply not possible a decade ago – and can create huge value in doing so. Our conviction about the European opportunity and our belief in its tech ecosystem is greater today than it has ever been – and it is particularly pleasing to see prominent US names join the roster of our LPs in this fund; names like Cisco, Emory and Texas A&M.

For our part, we promise to stay true to our mission. To continue to back exceptional enterprise software talent who have what it takes to transform large, global markets. To support and add value to our founders and portfolio companies both through the experience and pattern recognition of our investment team and through our unique value-added offering, the Notion Platform. To support and empower the European ecosystem as a whole, treating all its participants with respect. And finally to be true to our internal mantra of ‘have fun, make money’.

Posted by Stephen Chandler, Managing Partner at Notion Capital.