European cloud computing startups get $120M boost thanks to fresh Notion Capital fund

Notion Capital, a venture capital investment firm based in London, has launched a new $120 million fund to back Europe’s business-to-business cloud-computing companies.

Founded in 2008, Notion Capital was set up by brothers Ben and Jos White after they sold their company, MessageLabs, to Symantec for $700 million.

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The VC firm had two previous funds prior to today, amounting to around $150 million, and plans are afoot to extend its latest $120 million fund to $150 million by the end of this year.

The fund will be aimed at software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud computing companies based in Europe, with a specific focus on startups at the series A stage.

In its two previous funds, Notion has invested in 33 startups, including U.K.-based call center company NewVoiceMedia; business payments network TradeShift, which originates from Denmark; and U.K.-based delivery company Shutl, which was bought by eBay in 2013.

Other companies it has invested in include SaaS startups Adbrain, Currency Cloud, Duedil, and Brightpearl.

There has been a flurry of European VC activity of late. Google Ventures launched a European branch last year promising $100 million in capital to local startups, while Balderton Capital revealed a new $300 million fund for European firms.

Elsewhere, Mosaic Ventures revealed a fresh $140 million fund, Singapore VC firm Infocomm made $200 million available, Index Ventures announced a $460 million fund for early-stage tech startups, and earlier this year 83North confirmed that $200 million was on the table.

Notion Capital, however, is creating its own niche here by focusing on a specific type of company. And if this seems like a small niche to you, think again.

The global public cloud market has been estimated to be worth north of $150 billion, according to private Gartner data cited by Notion Capital, with Europe specifically accounting for more than $37 billion. Notion Capital also points to IDC data that indicated SaaS accounted for $23 billion spent out of a total $134 billion for enterprise applications in 2013.

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“Our strategy remains to only invest in what we know, and we think this gives us a strong advantage in the market for both evaluating and supporting companies,” explained Stephen Chandler, managing partner at Notion Capital. “We aim to identify emerging entrepreneurial talent in Europe and help them build global category leaders. There are tremendous opportunities in this part of the world and the market remains undersupplied with high-quality capital. This new fund helps us change that.”