Paddle and GoCardless investor Notion Capital has closed its fifth fund at €300m, almost double the size of its predecessor.
The UK-HQ’d company has also promoted Itxaso del Palacio to general partner, the most senior role in most VC firms. Del Palacio, a Spanish-Basque national, was previously partner and joined Notion in 2018 from Microsoft’s venture arm. She is a Kauffman Fellow and a professor at UCL. Only 15% of GPs at European VCs are women, according to 2022 report.
Principals Stephanie Opdam and Kamil Mieczakowski, who also joined in 2018, have been promoted to partner.
Where will the money go?
Notion invests in early-stage SaaS and fintech companies from all over Europe. With the new fund, it plans to make around 20 deals, typically at Series A; their tickets are normally between €3m-10m but can reach €20m.
After the fund’s first close last year, the company has already invested in companies such as British fintech Bound, British pricing operation platform m3ter and Czech anti-financial fraud platform Resistant AI.
At the same time, Notion will keep investing out of its Pioneers programme — a scheme it created two years ago to invest small sums (around €50k) into pre-seed and seed-stage software startups. So far, the company has been making around one deal a week out of the programme.
Who invested in Notion?
The VC’s fifth fund was oversubscribed. LPs include sovereign wealth funds, endowments, funds of funds, pension funds, family offices and high-net-worth individuals from across Europe, MENA and the US — as well as numerous founders from Notion portfolio companies. Some of the returning LPs include British Patient Capital, Denmark’s Novo Holdings and Czech financial group RSJ. New LPs include US Cortes Capital, German KfW Capital, Shelby County Tennessee Retirement System and Dutch TNO pension fund.
Another new feature of Notion’s fifth fund: it’s euro denominated and based in Luxembourg, “reflecting the firm’s increasingly pan European focus,” according to a statement.
