We report efficient noncollinear optical parametric amplification (NOPA) of ultrabroadband near-IR pulses tunable in the $1.1–1.5\mathrm{\mu m}$ range at a repetition rate of $250\mathrm{kHz}$ . Improved generation of smooth near-IR continua (extending over $\sim 1.0–1.6\mathrm{\mu m}$ ) at $250\mathrm{kHz}$ was achieved by weakly focusing $\sim 20\%$ of the $1\mathrm{W}$ driving laser beam into a sapphire plate with longer focal length lenses than previously reported. Using bulk potassium-titanyl phosphate ( ${\mathrm{KTiOPO}}_4$ ) pumped at $800\mathrm{nm}$ , powers as high as $11\mathrm{mW}$ (14% pump conversion efficiency) and signal pulse durations as short as $23\mathrm{fs}$ were obtained after a single white-light seeded NOPA stage.