Patrick Norris

Patrick Norris is a General Partner at Notion Capital, the London-based venture firm focused on early-stage European B2B software, SaaS and FinTech companies. He joined Notion in July 2013. Before becoming an investor, Patrick had an unusually international and entrepreneurial career: he describes himself as a bilingual child in Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a student in Manchester, Edinburgh and Vienna, and later an investment banker (his banking career, reported elsewhere, includes time at Morgan Stanley) working in both New York and London.

His operating experience is central to how he positions himself. He was the first employee of a start-up in Sydney and went on to co-found tech and retail businesses in London — by his own account co-founding three start-ups across three different industries. That hands-on founder experience underpins his stated philosophy of being "the sort of investor I wish I had had when I started my businesses." He also worked in technology private equity before moving fully into venture.

On the academic side, Patrick holds an MSc in Finance and Investment from the University of Edinburgh and a BSc (Hons) in International Management and German, studied across Manchester and the University of Economics in Vienna. He is based in London and spends much of his time travelling across Europe sourcing founders and connecting them globally.

At Notion he sits on the boards / holds non-executive director roles at several portfolio companies, including Vortexa (from 2018), Upvest (from 2020) and Hokodo (from 2022), among others.

• Invests at seed through Series B in B2B software, SaaS, enterprise, cloud infrastructure, AI, FinTech and data/deep-tech companies across Europe.
• Backs founders he describes as **"ambitious, competitive, hard-working and get sh*t done"** — relationship-driven investing where he aims to "build strong, trusting and personal relationships with the founders I invest in, to support them through the ups and the downs."
• Looks for companies that can become "global category leaders" — large, under-digitized markets ripe for disruption by advanced/deep tech.
• On his Vortexa investment he articulated the pattern he chases: a market "which is enormous and hasn't yet been disrupted by advanced deep tech," technology that "democratises this market" by giving all parties equal access to accurate data, and a team of "data scientists and industry experts with exceptional technical capabilities." His conviction was that success was a question of "when and not if," and that a fast-enough mover "could rapidly emerge as the dominant category leader."
• Values deep founder/domain expertise — citing Vortexa's CEO's industry knowledge as enabling partnerships competitors couldn't reach.