Newion

Newion

Newion was founded in 2000 by Patrick Polak, an aerospace engineer who moved into venture capital in 1997. The Amsterdam-based firm predates the European SaaS wave by over a decade and has navigated multiple technology cycles with a deliberately narrow mandate: early-stage and expansion-stage business software companies. Its partners, including long-tenured leads Mathijs R. de Wit and Frank Claassen, have built a portfolio that stretches from legacy mainframe modernization to modern AI applications. The firm invests primarily at Seed and Series A, with ticket sizes between €1 million and €10 million in rounds of up to €20 million, and targets founders building scalable B2B SaaS, cloud, and software platforms. Its portfolio is geographically concentrated in Northern and Western Europe, with named portfolio companies including Collibra, a Belgian-founded data governance market leader, Deliverect, a food-delivery SaaS platform from Ghent, and Parloa, a German conversational AI company. Deals span the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Luxembourg. Newion’s approach emphasizes close partnership in the 12 to 18 months post-investment, when founders sequence product-market fit and early go-to-market decisions. Newion lists 14 team members on its website as of mid-2026, including six named partners. Patrick Polak and Frank Claassen serve as Partners for Fund I-IV, signaling a long-duration commitment structure. The firm does not publicize a philanthropic foundation or co-investor club, but it maintains a compact, debate-driven investment culture where all partners shape decisions collectively. In March 2026, the firm published a series of “spotlight stories” on its website detailing how its investment decisions take shape alongside founders, reinforcing its emphasis on process over thematics. Newion’s structural distinction lies in its endurance and single-stage focus. It has operated as the same legal entity, Newion Partners B.V., for over 25 years, avoiding the label proliferation and strategy drift common in venture. Its partners are named by fund generation — a rare signal of continuity — and the firm has never broadened beyond European B2B software, creating a dense, cross-cycle reference set that shapes its deal evaluation.