After $695 M sale of MessageLabs, founders form new fund to invest IT companies

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The founders of MessageLabs, the UK computer security company acquired by Symantec for $695 million in October, announced the formation of Notion Capital, a specialist investor in IT companies.

Brothers Ben and Jos White, who set up MessageLabs, will be founding partners in Notion, together with Stephen Chandler, Chris Tottman and Ian Milbourn, three of the company’s most senior executives. The founders plan to invest GBP 20million in the fund and will raise an additional GBP 60 million to GBP 80 million from a network of investors.

Notion will invest in early to mid-stage growth companies with a particular focus on services with recurring revenue models and Software as a Service. Investments will span from GBP 250,000 in an early stage business through to GBP 10 million to GBP 20 million for a mid-size, growth business.

“After many years of building successful tech companies we know that, in addition to funding, often what growth businesses need the most, especially in today’s challenging economic climate, is the right advice and experience to take their business to the next level. Notion will be focused on providing this powerful combination to our portfolio companies,” said Ben White.

Notion will offer an Acceleration Programme to every business it invests in covering sales and marketing, financial management and people performance.

“So often, even companies with the best ideas fall short of their potential. Typically this is either due to a lack of funds or a lack of experience of how to strike the right balance between growth and profitability, something that is especially important during an economic downturn,” said Jos White.

“In today’s challenging times businesses need to be well financed and well prepared to survive in the short term in order to build a strong and sustainable business that can prosper in the longer term. Having been through it ourselves many times, we believe that Notion can identify high quality businesses that have what it takes to not only get through the next couple of years but to go on to be major success stories as the economic conditions improve.”

Ben and Jos White are successful entrepreneurs, having founded three companies and grown them all into market leaders each with revenues in excess of $100M: RBR Networks in 1993; Star Internet in 1995 and MessageLabs in 2000.

Stephen Chandler was a director at UBS Investment Bank advising leading global technology companies on funding and M&A before joining the brothers in 2000 where he has served as the Chief Financial Officer for both Star and MessageLabs. Chris Tottman joined the group in 1999 and has served in a number of management roles both within Star and MessageLabs. Ian Milbourn is VP Corporate Finance at MessageLabs and has led a number of M&A and financing transactions for the company.