Pitch Gauge Wins Seventh Startup Showdown
PitchGauge wins the seventh Startup Showdown, a monthly pitch competition designed by BIP Ventures to showcase and fund early-stage tech companies.
We are so pleased to welcome Christy Johnson as General Partner and Chief Performance Officer (CPO). Experienced with VC and startup leadership, she will support the firm's portfolio companies through the Performance Engineering practice, a differentiated offering among VC firms that deepens what it means to be invested in founders.
Working well beyond the traditional value creation playbook, Christy and the team work shoulder-to-shoulder with each company, leveraging earned knowledge and understanding earned from decades of experience as founders and operators. By acknowledging what has brought a startup to its current success as well as their goals, gaps, and problems, Performance Engineering customizes support for key areas like product development, marketing and sales, and talent acquisition. This work increases the company's ability to lean into their own strengths, drive revenue and optimize exit value.
"We are investing heavily in our ability to help BIP Ventures portfolio companies accelerate revenue, attract elite talent, improve operations, and to benefit from our capital markets capabilities," said Mark Buffington, Managing Partner of BIP Ventures. "Christy is the perfect person to lead those efforts. She has been an integral part of our history and she has deep experience in multiple functional leadership roles. As the CEO of AchieveIt, she not only transformed the startup into a hyper-growth category leader, she also became one of the most sought-after resources by other CEOs in our portfolio."
Christy joined the firm in 2008 as an early member of the BIP Wealth leadership team. In the role of Chief Operations Officer (COO), she led the building of the operational infrastructure for the new Investment Advisory firm and helped lay the foundation for AUM growth from $35M to $440M in under six years. She then served on the leadership team as COO for BIP Capital where, in addition to building internal operations, she also assisted portfolio companies with growth strategies, infrastructure building, and overall support.
Between 2016-2022, Christy served as CEO of AchieveIt Online, a BIP Ventures portfolio company. Under her leadership, the company more than tripled in revenue, and was named to the Inc. 5000 Fastest-growing Companies list (2017-2021) and Inc. Best Workplaces in 2021. She now serves as Chairperson of the Board.
"We are taking what has been a standard Private Equity go-to strategy for years and creating a distinctly tailored offering for the needs of companies earlier in their growth journey," said Christy. "The approach is focused on speed to impact by engaging disciplined processes and leveraging data."